Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
不完美认证与内生质量供给
Imperfect certification and endogenous quality provision
摘要
Existing studies on imperfect certification typically assume exogenous quality. This paper studies endogenous quality in a duopoly with certification subject to false negatives. Firms are either strategic or bad types. We show that, without bad types, imperfect certification cannot sustain high-quality provision in pure-strategy equilibrium. Introducing bad types disciplines strategic firms into choosing high quality when investment costs are sufficiently low. Thus, adverse selection can support, rather than undermine, quality investment incentives. Beyond the direct information effect, more accurate certification may reduce welfare by triggering an inefficient quality investment race.
中文摘要
现有关于不完美认证的研究通常假定质量外生。本文研究存在假阴性认证的双寡头市场中内生质量问题。企业分为策略型或劣质型。我们表明，在没有劣质型的情况下，不完美认证无法在纯策略均衡中维持高质量供给。引入劣质型会在投资成本足够低时约束策略型企业选择高质量。因此，逆向选择可以支持而非削弱质量投资激励。除直接信息效应外，更准确的认证可能引发低效率的质量投资竞赛，从而降低福利。