Premium
INFORMATION AND THE PROVISION OF QUALITY DIFFERENTIATED PRODUCTS
Author(s) -
BROUHLE KEITH,
KHANNA MADHU
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
economic inquiry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.823
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1465-7295
pISSN - 0095-2583
DOI - 10.1111/j.1465-7295.2006.00033.x
Subject(s) - product (mathematics) , quality (philosophy) , subsidy , welfare , product differentiation , economics , business , information asymmetry , consumer welfare , social welfare , microeconomics , public economics , marketing , market economy , philosophy , geometry , mathematics , epistemology , political science , law
Governments often enact information provision policies to overcome asymmetric information of product qualities. We show that increasing awareness among consumers of the quality of a good can (but will not always) encourage firms to produce goods with higher levels of quality. Even if product qualities increase, social welfare may fall as information provision results in too much product differentiation. We show that the effectiveness of emission taxes and output subsidies are affected by the level of consumer knowledge of product quality, and we identify conditions under which information provision is welfare enhancing relative to these price instruments. ( JEL L1 5, Q58)