Does Trade Weaken product Quality Standards?

Katia Berti and Rodney Falvey

Discussion Papers from University of Nottingham, GEP

Abstract: In this paper we investigate the interrelationships between trade and national minimum quality standards. We employ a simple partial equilibrium model in which national regulators set a minimum quality standard for a product whose quality is unobservable to consumers prior to purchase. Both producers and consumers can benefit from a minimum standard, but the former prefer a lower standard to the latter. Because producers are organised and consumers are not, the standards set by national regulators may tend to unduly favour producer interests. We focus on two specific issues: first, how the weight given to producer interests affects the outcomes in autarky and the open economy; and, second, how outcomes differ when the effects of standards on trade are explicitly taken into account or ignored in standard setting in the open economy.

Keywords: Product standards; political economy; asymmetric information (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/gep/documents/papers/2011/11-24.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:not:notgep:11/24

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers from University of Nottingham, GEP School of Economics University of Nottingham University Park Nottingham NG7 2RD. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Hilary Hughes ().