产品差异化下的食品安全最低质量标准

Food Safety Minimum Quality Standard under Product Differentiation

食品行业最低质量标准体系是食品安全的重要保障。在当前,食品安全的现状尤显迫切,这对食品企业提出更高要求。然而,最低标准提高是否有利消费者还值得商榷,因为企业有可能通过提高价格转嫁生产成本而损害消费者福利。本文考察在产品差异化市场中提高最低质量标准的影响,发现在不同情况下提高质量标准对于厂商利润、消费者福利及社会总福利的影响不尽相同。若质量标准针对企业对设备与技术的先期投资,则严格的质量标准会增加消费者剩余且提高社会总福利,此时制定严格的标准更加有效;而若质量标准针对企业在生产过程中的持续性投入,则严格的质量标准可能会降低消费者剩余且有损社会总福利。我们的理论发现和实际中HACCP控制产品质量的核心思想一致。

Minimum quality standard （MQS） is an important approach to guarantee food safety level. But whether it necessarily benefits social welfare is controversial since the firms can transfer the extra cost to consumers. This paper investigates the effects of MQS under different production stages in a framework of product differentiation and imperfect competition. We find that the MQS plays different roles in different conditions： When quality improvement requires upfront investment, increasing MQS will increase consumer surplus and social welfare; however, it can reduce either consumer surplus or social welfare when variable cost is affected.