Information Asymmetry as a Reason for Food Industry Vertical Integration
探讨信息不对称如何导致食品行业从开放市场转向纵向协调，解释农业工业化趋势，对研究产业组织和食品质量的学者有参考价值。
Abstract Three trends that have been subject to recent discussion are a movement away from undifferentiated agricultural commodities toward more specialized products, reduced reliance on open markets for raw agricultural products, and a movement toward agricultural industrialization. Recent research suggests that demographic trends may be causing the first trend, while the other two are closely related phenomena. This research suggests that information externalities, arising from uncertainty concerning the nature of food quality and problems in detecting quality, may be reasons why vertical coordination is being used to circumvent the marketplace.