Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/194113 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
Economics Working Paper Series No. 18/290
Publisher: 
ETH Zurich, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research, Zurich
Abstract: 
A coarse certification provides simple, but incomplete information about quality. Its main rationale is to help consumers trade off dimensions of quality that are complex and lack salience. In imperfectly competitive markets, it may induce excess bunching at the certification requirement, crowd out high quality, and facilitate price discrimination. Who will ultimately benefit from a coarse certification thus depends on the degree of market power firms can exercise as well as on consumers' sophistication in responding to such information. This paper illustrates these insights using the ENERGY STAR certification program as a case study. I investigate the incidence of the program with a structural econometric model of the U.S. appliance market. I find that the certification can crowd out energy efficiency, make consumers worst off, and have small, but heterogenous impacts on firms' profits. In this context, the certification tends to not be welfare-improving. This conclusion, however, crucially depends on the market environment and the design of the policy - in scenarios where energy prices are low, or the certification requirement is very stringent, the ES program can be welfare-improving.
Subjects: 
Coarse certification
consumer attention
differentiated markets
structural estimation
energy efficiency
JEL: 
D43
L13
L15
L68
Q48
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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