We examine how benefits of mandated generic advertising vary with firm size in an asymmetric Cournot oligopoly market. Generic advertising, funded through a mandatory assessment, changes demand but also increases firms' costs. The effect on a firm's profits depends upon the nature of the change...

Third party certification bodies audit companies to determine compliance with standards. We introduce a model of oligopoly competition between certification bodies, showing that a higher degree of certification body competition results in higher grades. We empirically test this hypothesis using...