The Strategic Use of Private Quality Standards in Food Supply Chains
研究了两个零售商如何利用私人质量标准来改善在中间品市场的议价地位，并发现这会导致上游生产低效，而强制最低质量标准可缓解此问题。
We explore the strategic role of private quality standards in food supply chains. Considering two symmetric retailers that are exclusively supplied by a finite number of producers and endogenizing the suppliers’ delivery choice, we show that there exist two asymmetric equilibria in the retailers’ quality requirements. Our results reveal that the retailers use private quality standards to improve their bargaining position in the intermediate goods market. This is associated with inefficiencies in the upstream production, which can be mitigated by enforcing a minimum quality standard.