We study the buyer-seller relationship in a supply chain from the perspective of quality. In particular, weexamine situations where quality levels of the product can be observed, yet, conformance cannot be enforcedunless the buyer engages in costly, legally-binding activity, which we call audit....

In the global sourcing world, particularly in financial services, offshore outsourcing and associated data transfers are commonplace and increasing, searching out lower cost third countries, which may have even fewer data protections. In such an environment, the 1998 Data Protection Act's 8...