誠實或黑心？食品認證價值與廠商行為決策之探討

The Value of Food Certification and Firms' Strategies

楊貴鈞(Kuei-Chun Yang)

指導教授 ： 吳健瑋

國立暨南國際大學/管理學院/經濟學系/碩士(2014年)

https://doi.org/10.6837/NCNU.2014.00232

摘要

近年來台灣的食品安全風暴越演越烈，消費者除了憂慮自己吃進嘴巴裡的食物是不是安全的，理應扮演一個把關防護傘角色的認證機制屢屢失靈，甚至傳統食品大廠也跟著淪陷，疑慮與不信任的惡性循環因此越來越嚴重。本文主要的研究目的，便是設法架設經濟模型來解釋為什麼感覺讓人信任的公司仍然會做出欺騙消費者這種令人費解的行為。
研究結果發現：罰金與政府抓到廠商製作黑心商品的機率都與有認證廠商的訂價有互補的關係，因此若廠商的訂價相對較高，則政府的處罰及花費在搜查黑心商品方面的成本相對來說不需太高即能嚇阻廠商選擇欺騙消費者的行為。
另外，隨著產品訂價的增加，時間偏好ρ的值也會跟著增加。但若是認證廠商與沒有認證廠商間的高低價差太相近，可能導致找不到均衡的時間偏好ρ的範圍的情況出現，從而使得廠商會做出偏離均衡路徑的決策行為。而當高價與低價之價差維持固定時，雖然認證價值隨訂價增加而提升，但時間偏好ρ的範圍維持不變，表示若兩種廠商在訂價能力上有所區分，彼此的產品各自獲利不會互相威脅，就較可能維持在一個穩定的均衡。

關鍵字

認證 ； 食品安全 ； 廠商決策 ； 賽局理論

並列摘要

The purpose of this article attempts to set up economic models to explain why firms that people trust or own certification still cheat consumers. Most consumers not only worry about the food that they eat into the mouth but also the effectiveness of certification. In the article, we will use Theory of the firm and basic Stochastic Game to construct our model and investigate the problem we interested.
The results showed that: the fine and the probability which government catch illegal firms have complementary relationship with certified firms. Therefore, when the pricing of certified firms is relatively high, we can reach the same effect that can prevent manufacturers from cheat consumers by lower punishment and costs of searching black-hearted firms by government.
In addition, with the increase in product pricing, the value of time preference ρ increases as follow. However, if the pricing level between certified manufacturer and uncertified manufacturer too close, it could lead the value equilibrium of time preference ρ too low, or even cannot find an equilibrium path. So that, some firms will make a decision that deviate from the equilibrium path.
When the high-priced and low-cost maintain a fixed range, although certified value increases with the pricing level, the scope of time preference ρ still unchanged. It indicates that if there is a difference in pricing between certified manufacturer and uncertified manufacturer, they can keep their own products sold and will not threaten each other's benefit. Also, it is more likely to remain at a stable equilibrium.

並列關鍵字

Certification ； food safety ； firm’s strategy ； Game Theory

參考文獻

英文部分

Bien A. (2004). “A Simple User’s Guide to Certification for Sustainable Tourism and Ecotourism.” The International Ecotourism Society.

Biglaiser, G., J. Cremer and G. Dobos (2013). “The value of switching costs.” Journal of Economic Theory, 148, pp.935-352.

Bertrand, J. (1883). “Theorie Mathematique de la Richesse Sociale.” Journal des Savants, pp.499-508.

Courbage, C. and B. Rey (2008). “On rhe willingness to pay to reduce risksof small losses.” Journal of Economics, 95(1), pp.75-82.