Consumers have increasing demands for product standards. This has important implications for development. This paper develops a firmal theory of the process of the introduction of high product standards in developing countries. The model endogenizes the introduction of high standards. Initial...

This paper presents a political economy model of public standards in an open economy model. We use the model to derive the political optimum and to analyze different factors that have an influence on this political equilibrium. The paper discusses how the level of development influences the...

This paper develops a firmal theory of the endogenous process of the introduction of high quality products in developing countries. Initial differences in income and capital and transaction costs are shown to affect the emergence of and the size of the high quality economy. Initial differences...