Anmerkungen:
Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments November 13, 2015 erstellt
Beschreibung:
In many industries, intermediaries assess and signal quality before new products are brought to market. We evaluate the extent to which certifiers can be relied upon to report product quality accurately when they strategically compete with each other for customers. This paper exploits a natural experiment based on the FDA's decision to allow private third parties to prepare certification reports for certain medical devices. We use comprehensive data on all US medical devices from 1998 to 2008. This policy led to significantly more adverse medical events for the affected devices. Our results indicate that the effect is larger in contexts where there is a larger benefit to the certifier from building a positive relationship with the medical device manufacturer