Quality Signals and Governance Structures within European Agro-food Chains: A New Institutional Economics Approach.

International audienceThe goal of the paper is to design a framework to study the links between quality signaling, coordination in the supply chain and institutional environment. In order to safeguard quality to consumers, we assume that there must be an efficient alignement between quality characteristics, mechanisms of quality control (including certification) and governance structures. In order to test this general hypothesis, we conduct a comparative analysis of 42 case studies in 3 sectors at the European level. Our research shed lights on the safeguarding quality issue in agrofood chains. It will also adress the issue of compatibility between antitrust and producers organization