We compare certification to a minimum quality standard (MQS) policy in a duopolistic industry where firms incur quality-dependent fixed costs and only a fraction of consumers observe the quality of the offered goods. Compared to the unregulated outcome, both profits and social welfare would...

As the network externality in an industrial organization has been widely discussed in recent years, many researchers in the field have noted a particular type of market, the so-called two-sided market. In a two-sided market, two or more groups of agents such as buyers and sellers interact while...

Public and private entities around the world are trying to induce the provision of higher-quality health care by adopting institutional arrangements intended to promote competition among care providers. I selectively survey and supplement the literature to show that an increase in...

This paper studies the effect of a minimum quality standard, a compulsory labeling scheme, and the combination of both instruments in a vertical differentiation model when not all quality dimensions of products can be observed byconsumers. Both a minimum quality standard on the non-observable...

We adopt a framework of vertical differentiation (i.e. differentiation by quality) to study the issue of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). We develop a model of duopoly in a two‐country setting, in which firms choose the country of location, the level of CSR and finally compete in the...

In this paper we study how an exogenous expense of owning a market good affects the equilibrium outcome in a market with vertical product differentiation i.e. consumers differ by income but have identical preferences for the good’s quality. We identify three possible subgame-perfect...

Using a spatial competition framework with three ex ante identical firms, we study the effects of a horizontal merger on quality, price and welfare. The merging firms always reduce quality. They also increase prices if demand responsiveness to quality is sufficiently low. The non-merging firm,...

Abstract: We compare certification to a minimum quality standard (MQS) policy in a duopolistic industry where firms incur quality-dependent fixed costs and only a fraction of consumers observes the quality of the offered goods. Compared to the unregulated outcome, both profits and social welfare...

We consider cannibalization in a duopoly model in which …rms with di¤erent costs supply two vertically di¤erentiated products in the same market. We …nd that an increase in the di¤erence in quality between the two goods or a decrease in the marginal cost of the high-quality goods leads to...