The Economics of Quality, Grades and Brands (Routledge Revivals) Routledge Revivals Series

Virtually every decision to produce, buy or sell is influenced by quality, yet until this book was first published in 1992, there had been very little attempt to produce a comprehensive and practical theory for this. Here, Peter Bowbrick brings together different traditions of quality analysis from economics, marketing economics and marketing itself to identify the limitations of the different traditions of quality economics and some approaches to its analysis. Beginning with a definition of the subject and the concepts involved, this comprehensive title will be of particular value to students of Economics, Marketing and Business Studies.

List of figures; List of tables; Introduction; 1. What is quality? 2. The product as a variable 3. What are brands and grades 4. What is search? 5. Brands as search 6. Sorting 7. Uniformity 8. Grades and search 9. Compulsory minimum standards: good or bad? 10. Price as an indicator of quality 11. Market effects 12. The costs of producing quality 13. The time dimension 14. Subjective attributes and objective characteristics 15. Errors in characteristics theory 16. The misuse of hedonic prices and costs 17. Approaches to the economics of quality; Notes; Bibliography; Name index; Subject index