On announcing a consultation exercise about how new money for the NHS should be used, the Health Secretary declared he wanted an NHS 'where the consumer is king'. Empowerment of consumers requires that they have choice. The institutional arrangements in the NHS do not facilitate this

Programs that certify the environmental (or other social) attributes of firms are common. But the proliferation of labeling schemes makes it difficult for consumers to know what each one means – what level of ‘greenness' does a particular label imply? We provide the first model in which...