食品安全信息的最优披露策略研究——基于制度模型的均衡分析

Optimal disclosure strategy of food safety information

有关食品安全信息的批露策略,从21世纪初中国进入食品安全事件高发期开始一直存在较大争议。相关争议可以溯源到我国从计划经济向市场经济转型的历史背景:计划经济时期,由于食品安全事件的责任方、行政主管部门以及负责报道的媒体被合并为同一个利益主体,因此,在封闭的媒体环境下对食品安全事件的负面信息进行公关性报道,成为一个内生性选项。在市场经济逐步建立之后,虽然法律明确了食品安全信息向上逐级汇报的主体责任,以及媒体报道相关信息时需要遵循的规则,但对于各级责任主体究竟该如何向广大消费者披露相关信息,却留下了很大的模糊空间。本文构建了一个包含食品企业、消费者和政府主管部门三个利益相关方的信息披露制度模型,并分别针对满足食品企业利润最大化、消费者效用最大化和政府追求的社会总福利最大化等目标的均衡条件进行了求解和讨论。结果表明:食品企业会把食品安全的负面信息元与公关性信息元组合披露,避免负面信息给企业造成负面影响;消费者所需的最优披露策略是每个信息元单独披露,也就是及时准确的信息披露;政府所追求的社会总福利最大化所需的信息披露策略,虽然会随着经济社会发展水平的提高而发生变化,但政府逐步放开对媒体的管制,增大媒体自由度,始终可以提升社会总福利。本文的研究结论表明:要将各利益相关方所执行的信息披露策略,均统一到实现社会总福利最大化的目标上,可以从增大媒体自由度水平的角度进行制度设计。本文的理论分析结果,对于确定媒体监督在食品安全监管体系中的制度要件价值,具有深刻的政策含义。

The disclosure strategy for food safety information has been controversial since the beginning of this century when China entered the highrisk period of food safety incidents. The disputes can be traced back to the historical background of China＇ s transition from a planned economy to a market economy ： during the planned economy period, the responsible party for food safety incidents, the administrative department and the media responsible for reporting were merged into the same interest group. Whitewashing negative information about food safety incidents has become an endogenous option. After the gradual establishment of the market economy, although the law clarifies the main responsibility, and the rules to be followed when the media reports relevant information, how should the responsible entities at all levels disclose relevant information to the consumers is still a question to answer. This paper constructs a model of information disclosure system including three stakeholders of food enterprises, consumers and government departments, then solves and discusses the equilibrium conditions under the assumption of complete rationality and limited rationality of consumers. The results show that the food enterprises will disclose the combination of the negative information element and the PR information element of food safety, and have an analytic solution for the optimal publicity power of different information elements. The optimal disclosure strategy required by consumers is that each information element is disclosed separately, and the information disclosure strategy needed to maximize the total social welfare will change with the improvement of economic and social development. Whether it is based on the assumption of consumer＇s complete rationality or bounded rationality, the government gradually liberalizing its control over the media and increasing the freedom of the media will enhance the overall social welfare. The model in this paper is also applicable to the analysis of the optimal strategy of negative disclosure in other fields. The theoretical analysis results of this paper have profound policy implications for determining the institutional value of media supervision in the food safety supervision system.