uncertain of their quality at the time of hiring a certification intermediary and if the decision to get a rating is not …

liquidity and certification agencies to become aggressive competitors in a new speculative grade market. …

convince consumers of the high quality of its products. Alternatively, a firm can rely on external certification of the quality … external certification. We also show that the potential to signal quality is improved if consumers condition their beliefs on … the source of information, namely whether information comes from external certification or from random detection. …

Who does, and who should initiate costly certification by a third party under asymmetric quality information, the buyer …--induced certification acts as an inspection device, whence seller--induced certification acts as a signalling device. Seller …--induced certification maximizes the certifier's profit and social welfare. This suggests the general principle that certification is, and …

Many high technology goods are based on standards that require access to several patents that are owned by different IP …

Professional standards vary across professions and also change over time. One profession which has remained … standards may nonetheless decline. This mechanism is captured in an oligopoly model, where the failure rate and the quality are …

Traditional analyses of standards in international trade identify standards as government regulations and investigate … the determination of technical standards. The composition of these groups is affected by technology and market conditions … harmonization ‘from the bottom’. If standards are public goods whose ideal value differs across economic activities and across …

(which are naturally subject to more regulations and standards), so the discrimination may have an 'escalating' feature, much …