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Competing Environmental Labels
Author(s) -
Fischer Carolyn,
Lyon Thomas P.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of economics and management strategy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.672
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1530-9134
pISSN - 1058-6407
DOI - 10.1111/jems.12061
Subject(s) - competition (biology) , business , quality (philosophy) , product (mathematics) , marketing , environmental quality , industrial organization , environmental economics , economics , mathematics , ecology , biology , philosophy , geometry , epistemology
We study markets in which consumers prefer green products but cannot determine the environmental quality of any given firm's product on their own. A nongovernmental organization (NGO) can establish a voluntary standard and label products that comply with it. Alternatively, industry can create its own standard and label. We compare the stringency of these two types of labels, and study their strategic interaction when they coexist. We find that even with error‐free labels, environmental benefits may be smaller with two labels than with the NGO label alone, and we characterize when label competition is more likely to be environmentally beneficial.