Alliances between Competitors and Consumer Information
分析一家知名企业（A）与一家不知名企业（B）结盟时，B的质量选择如何被消费者解读。联盟起到隐性认证作用，帮助解决B的道德风险问题。对研究企业联盟、质量信号和消费者行为的学者有用。
Alliances between competitors in which established firms provide access to proprietary resources-for example, their distribution channels-are important business practices. We analyze a market where an established firm, firm A, produces a product of well-known quality, and a firm with an unknown brand, firm B, has to choose to produce high or low quality. Firm A observes firm B's quality choice but consumers do not. Hence, firm B is subject to a moral hazard problem which can potentially be solved by firm A. Firm A can accept or reject to form an alliance with firm B, which is observed by consumers. If an alliance is formed, firm A implicitly certifies the rival's product. Consumers infer that firm B is a competitor with high quality, because otherwise why would the established firm accept to form an alliance? The mechanism we discover allows for an economic interpretation of several types of business practices. (c) 2007 by the European Economic Association.