Choosing Certifiers: Evidence from the British Retail Consortium Food Safety Standard
研究食品制造商如何选择第三方认证机构，发现他们更倾向于选择被认为更宽松、地理位置更近或之前合作过的认证机构。
Abstract Standards play a vital role in promoting food safety, and in many countries third‐party certification bodies carry out audits to determine if food manufacturers comply with a particular standard. Using data from the British Retail Consortium global standards program, we study manufacturers’ choices of certification bodies. We take a certification body's share of high audit grades in the months preceding an audit as a measure of perceived leniency, and find that manufacturers are more likely to choose certification bodies that they perceive to be more lenient. Manufactures are also more likely to choose geographically closer certification bodies, and to return to the same certifier that audited their site in the previous year.