Abstract：
Food safety is a credence good that is hard for consumers to assess even after consumption. Government have used minimum quality standards (MQSs) to prevent producers from selling products below a predetermined quality threshold, thereby improving the overall quality in the market. This study is the first to empirically examine the impact of MQSs on food safety in China. We constructed the number of mutton criminal cases (per billion people) as a proxy for food safety in a province, based on the data obtained from China Judgments Online, we evaluated the effect for the period of 2013 through 2019. Using the generalized difference-in-difference econometric method, we found that a higher minimum quality standard led to an increase in mutton criminal cases related to the production and sale of counterfeit and shoddy products. Such results highlight a potential unintended consequence of a higher MQS and call for a higher penalty cost to mitigate the unintended consequence.
摘要：
食品安全是一种可靠的商品，即使消费者在食用后也很难评估。政府已使用最低质量标准（MQSs）来防止生产商销售低于预定质量阈值的产品，从而提高市场的整体质量。本研究首次实证检验了MQSs对我国食品安全的影响。我们构建了羊肉刑事案件的数量（每十亿人）作为一个省份食品安全的代表，根据从中国在线判决获得的数据，我们评估了2013年至2019年的影响。利用广义差分计量经济学方法，我们发现，较高的最低质量标准导致与生产和销售假冒伪劣产品有关的羊肉刑事案件增加。这些结果凸显了更高MQS的潜在意外后果，并要求更高的惩罚成本来减轻意外后果。
