IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/bjafio/v7y2009i2n6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Wasteful Labeling

Author

Listed:
  • Mahenc Philippe

    (Toulouse School of Economics (LERNA-INRA))

Abstract

The role of labeling is to solve the adverse selection problem caused by unsubstantiated claims from firms. The problem however is likely to remain unsolved if the labeling agency is not trustworthy. The agency can be suspected to divert the fees charged for labeling from their primary purpose of collecting information in order to raise excessive revenue. This paper addresses this issue and shows that labeling may be wasteful if the agency is likely to be untrustworthy. To award firms green labels, the agency may charge fees that exceed the Ramsey level at which the revenue needed for collecting information is raised with a minimal loss in terms of efficiency.

Suggested Citation

  • Mahenc Philippe, 2009. "Wasteful Labeling," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 7(2), pages 1-20, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:bjafio:v:7:y:2009:i:2:n:6
    DOI: 10.2202/1542-0485.1279
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.2202/1542-0485.1279
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2202/1542-0485.1279?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Karen Palmer & Wallace E. Oates & Paul R. Portney & Karen Palmer & Wallace E. Oates & Paul R. Portney, 2004. "Tightening Environmental Standards: The Benefit-Cost or the No-Cost Paradigm?," Chapters, in: Environmental Policy and Fiscal Federalism, chapter 3, pages 53-66, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Fullerton, Don, 1982. "On the possibility of an inverse relationship between tax rates and government revenues," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 3-22, October.
    3. Kuhn, Michael, 1999. "Green Lemons - Environmental Labels and Entry into an Environmentally Differentiated Market under Asymmetric Information," Thuenen-Series of Applied Economic Theory 20, University of Rostock, Institute of Economics.
    4. Lomborg,Bjørn, 2001. "The Skeptical Environmentalist," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521010689.
    5. Michael Kuhn, 2005. "The Greening of Markets," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 3583.
    6. McCluskey, Jill J., 2000. "A Game Theoretic Approach to Organic Foods: An Analysis of Asymmetric Information and Policy," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 29(1), pages 1-9, April.
    7. Mari Rege, 2000. "Strategic Policy and Environmental Quality: Helping the Domestic Industry to Provide Credible Information," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 15(3), pages 279-296, March.
    8. Julie A. Caswell & Eliza M. Mojduszka, 1996. "Using Informational Labeling to Influence the Market for Quality in Food Products," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 78(5), pages 1248-1253.
    9. Ibanez, Lisette & Stenger, Anne, 2000. "Environment and Food Safety in Agriculture: Are Labels Efficient?," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(4), pages 452-464, December.
    10. Avner Shaked & John Sutton, 1982. "Relaxing Price Competition Through Product Differentiation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(1), pages 3-13.
    11. Adel Ben Youssef & Rim Lahmandi-Ayed, 2008. "Eco-labelling, Competition and Environment: Endogenization of Labelling Criteria," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 41(2), pages 133-154, October.
    12. Thomas P. Lyon & John W. Maxwell, 2011. "Greenwash: Corporate Environmental Disclosure under Threat of Audit," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(1), pages 3-41, March.
    13. John M. Crespi & St)phan Marette, 2001. "How Should Food Safety Certification be Financed?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 83(4), pages 852-861.
    14. Boulding, William & Kirmani, Amna, 1993. "A Consumer-Side Experimental Examination of Signaling Theory: Do Consumers Perceive Warranties as Signals of Quality?," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 20(1), pages 111-123, June.
    15. Mahenc, Philippe, 2008. "Signaling the environmental performance of polluting products to green consumers," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 59-68, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Brécard, Dorothée, 2014. "Consumer confusion over the profusion of eco-labels: Lessons from a double differentiation model," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 64-84.
    2. Philippe Mahenc, 2017. "Honest versus Misleading Certification," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 454-483, June.
    3. Olivier Bonroy & Christos Constantatos, 2015. "On the Economics of Labels: How Their Introduction Affects the Functioning of Markets and the Welfare of All Participants," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 97(1), pages 239-259.
    4. Pio Baake & Helene Naegele, 2017. "Competition between For-Profit and Industry Labels: The Case of Social Labels in the Coffee Market," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1686, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    5. Hattori, Keisuke & Higashida, Keisaku, 2014. "Misleading advertising and minimum quality standards," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 1-14.
    6. Mireille Chiroleu-Assouline, 2016. "Multiple Standards: the Case of the French Building Industry," Policy Papers 2016.08, FAERE - French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
    7. repec:gbl:wpaper:2013-01 is not listed on IDEAS

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ben Youssef Adel & Abderrazak Chema, 2009. "Multiplicity of Eco-Labels, Competition, and the Environment," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 7(2), pages 1-24, December.
    2. Philippe Mahenc, 2017. "Honest versus Misleading Certification," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 454-483, June.
    3. Andr, Francisco J. & Gonzlez, Paula & Porteiro, Nicols, 2009. "Strategic quality competition and the Porter Hypothesis," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 182-194, March.
    4. Cuffaro, Nadia & Di Giacinto, Marina, 2015. "Credence goods, consumers’ trust in regulation and high quality exports," Bio-based and Applied Economics Journal, Italian Association of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AIEAA), vol. 4(2), pages 1-19, August.
    5. Giovanni Anania & Rosanna Nisticò, 2004. "Public Regulation as a Substitute for Trust in Quality Food Markets: What if the Trust Substitute cannot be Fully Trusted?," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 160(4), pages 681-701, December.
    6. Etilé, Fabrice & Teyssier, Sabrina, 2013. "Corporate social responsibility and the economics of consumer social responsibility," Review of Agricultural and Environmental Studies - Revue d'Etudes en Agriculture et Environnement (RAEStud), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), vol. 94(2).
    7. Dolores Garrido & Ana Espínola‐Arredondo & Felix Munoz‐Garcia, 2020. "Can mandatory certification promote greenwashing? A signaling approach," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(6), pages 1801-1851, December.
    8. Zago, Angelo M. & Pick, Daniel H., 2004. "Labeling Policies in Food Markets: Private Incentives, Public Intervention, and Welfare Effects," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 29(1), pages 1-16, April.
    9. Auriol, Emmanuelle & Schilizzi, Steven G.M., 2015. "Quality signaling through certification in developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 105-121.
    10. Brécard Dorothée & Lucas Sterenn & Pichot Nathalie & Salladarré Frédéric, 2012. "Consumer Preferences for Eco, Health and Fair Trade Labels. An Application to Seafood Product in France," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-32, April.
    11. Olivier Bonroy & Christos Constantatos, 2015. "On the Economics of Labels: How Their Introduction Affects the Functioning of Markets and the Welfare of All Participants," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 97(1), pages 239-259.
    12. André, Francisco J., 2015. "Strategic Effects and the Porter Hypothesis," MPRA Paper 62237, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Grolleau, Gilles & Ibanez, Lisette & Mzoughi, Naoufel, 2009. "Too much of a good thing? Why altruism can harm the environment?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(7), pages 2145-2149, May.
    14. Nilsson, Tomas K.H. & Foster, Kenneth A., 2005. "Certification of Pork Products," 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI 19350, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    15. Roe, Brian E. & Sheldon, Ian M., 2001. "The Impacts of Labeling on the Production and Trade of Vertically Differentiated Goods with Process Attributes," 2001 Annual meeting, August 5-8, Chicago, IL 20451, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    16. repec:gbl:wpaper:2013-01 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Pim Heijnen, 2013. "Informative advertising by an environmental group," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 108(3), pages 249-272, April.
    18. Allard Made, 2014. "Information Provision by Interest Groups," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 58(4), pages 649-664, August.
    19. Stefan Ambec & Paul Lanoie, 2007. "When and Why Does It Pay To Be Green?," CIRANO Working Papers 2007s-20, CIRANO.
    20. Langinier Corinne & Babcock Bruce A., 2008. "Agricultural Production Clubs: Viability and Welfare Implications," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 1-31, December.
    21. Barry, I. & Bonroy, O. & Garella, P.G., 2015. "On taxes and subsidies with private eco-labeling," Working Papers 2015-09, Grenoble Applied Economics Laboratory (GAEL).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:bjafio:v:7:y:2009:i:2:n:6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.