The Evaluation Method And Empirical Research On Effectiveness Of Quality Certification To Eliminate The Quality Information Asymmetry

Standardization is one of the important instruments to eliminate the quality information asymmetry in information economics. As the main content of standardization, quality certification is regarded as a tool to improve consumer confidence by the International Standards Organization and the United Nations Industrial Development. That is, standardization eliminates the quality information asymmetry through the quality certification providing trust for consumers. Firstly, this paper studied the mechanism of quality certification eliminating the quality information asymmetry. The certification marks affixed to the commodity are the signal of delivering quality trust. And the strength of signal affects the effectiveness of quality certification eliminating the quality information asymmetry.Secondly, the paper focused on the method to evaluate the effectiveness of quality certification eliminating the quality information asymmetry, and then evaluated the effectiveness of quality certification eliminating the quality information asymmetry taking Hangzhou market as example.Based on the mechanism of quality certification eliminating the quality information asymmetry and the evaluation method in similar study literature,the paper established the evaluation index system, which is consist of cognition degree, trust degree and purchase degree, and chose nine representative quality certifications. Depending on the nature of the indexes,this paper deduced the effectiveness evaluation formula of quality certification, and designed a consumer behavior experiment, which got data through observing consumer behavior. The effectiveness evaluation method this paper built was unlike the method based on the questionnaire.According to the method above, we observed 1309 consumers in 32 days,which was about their consumer behavior in four supermarkets in Hangzhou.Based on the experimental data, the effectiveness of quality certification eliminating quality information asymmetry was calculated to be 20.26% in Hangzhou. Judging from the value, the effectiveness was at a low level.Finally, the paper proposed the suggestions to enhance the effectiveness of quality certification eliminating quality information asymmetry from the aspects of quality certification propaganda, certification bodies discipline,government supervision, based on the empirical results about cognition degree, trust degree and purchase degree.