In markets with quality unobservable to buyers, third-party certification is often the only instrument to increase … transparency. While both sellers and buyers have a demand for certification, its role differs fundamentally: sellers use it for … signaling, buyers use it for inspection. Seller induced certification leads to more transparency, because it is informative …

In models of certification possible restrictions on the nature of the fee structures are commonly analyzed. We show … certification schemes involve two substitutable dimensions-the fee structure and the disclosure rule. In the context of a canonical … unit good certification setup, these dimensions act as perfect substitutes for achieving trade efficiency and (monotone …

the implementability of (monotone) distributions of rents. The irrelevance results exploit that certification schemes …

We consider a monopolistic certifier selling certification services to a partially privately informed seller. The …