消费者保护的信息补救措施

Information Remedies for Consumer Protection

American Economic Review · 1981
被引 45
人大 A+FT50ABS 4*

中文导读

探讨了消费者保护监管中采用信息补救措施(如信息披露)的激励兼容机制,分析其如何利用私人经济激励实现监管目标,并诊断信息问题与评估替代方案。

Abstract

Consumer protection regulation has come under increasing fire from the Congress, courts, and the business community. In response, regulators have begun to innovate with market interventions that are more compatible with economic incentives. These incentive-compatible techniques include establishing property rights, mandating performance standards (instead of design standards), increasing competition, and encouraging and mandating information disclosure. Information disclosure allows consumer self-protection, compatible with individual preferences. Information is also compatible with sellers' incentives, inducing them to compete on the basis of information disclosed. In addition, this competition increases the incentive to generate and disseminate additional product information, thereby repeating the cycle. In this way, information remedies rely on private economic incentives to achieve regulatory goals, rather than on expensive direct enforcement by the regulator. Diagnosis of an information problem and evaluation of alternative remedies requires a number of steps: analysis of information production and distribution, identification of market failures and their implications for resource allocation in the information and product markets, and analysis of alternative remedies in light of these market failures.

信息补救消费者保护信息披露市场激励