We explore the strategic role of private quality standards in food supply chains. Considering two symmetric retailers that are exclusively supplied by a finite number of producers and endogenizing the suppliers' delivery choice, we show that there exist two asymmetric equilibria in the...

This paper highlights the strategic role that private quality standards play in food supply chains. Considering two symmetric retailers that are exclusively supplied by a finite number of producers and endogenizing the producers' delivery choice, we show that there exist two asymmetric...

Supermarkets and hypermarkets are expanding rapidly in many developing countries. While consequences for farmers and consumers were analyzed recently, little is known about the implications for traditional retail formats such as wet markets. Using data from a market survey in Thailand and...

The addition of sulfur dioxide is a longstanding and common practice in the winemaking industry. Sulfur dioxide preserves wine, preventing oxidation and browning. However, in the US, wine labeled as organic cannot contain added sulfur dioxide. A petition put forth to the National Organic...

The addition of sulfur dioxide is a longstanding and common practice in the winemaking industry. Sulfur dioxide preserves wine, preventing oxidation and browning. However, in the US, wine labeled as organic cannot contain added sulfur dioxide. A petition put forth to the National Organic...

Despite the different levels of maturity of organic markets among the member states of the European Union (EU), the European organic food market is continuously growing. In the EU this production method is regulated according to the Council Regulation (EC) 834/2007 (EC 834/07). All products...

The author reexamines the Schmalensee effect from a dynamic perspective. Schmalsensee’s argument suggesting that high quality can be signaled by high prices is based on the assumption that higher quality necessarily incurs higher production cost. In this paper, the author argues that firms...

We consider consumer entry in the canonical monopolistic nonlinear pricing model ( Mussa and Rosen 1978) wherein consumers learn their preference “types” after incurring privately known entry costs. We show that by taking into account consumer entry, the nature of optimal nonlinear pricing...

There are two competing sellers of an experience good, one offers high quality, one low. The low-quality seller can engage in deceptive advertising, potentially fooling a buyer into thinking the product is better than it is. Although deceptive advertising might seem to harm the buyer, we show...

This paper analyzes optimal product lines when consumers differ both in their taste for quality and in their desire for social image. The market outcome features partial pooling and product differentiation that is not driven by heterogeneous valuations for quality but by image concerns. A...