'La Garantia Soy Jo': An Empirical Evaluation of the Institutional Enforcement of Consumers' Rights (Portuguese Version)

Abstract:     
This paper is an attempt to measure different institutional settings, regarding the consumer's rights protection, by the consumer's willingness to pay for the guarantee provided by the retail seller. Since the guarantee rely partially on the reputation and partially on the institutions (namely, the law and the enforcement provided by the courts), one can say that the less is the willingness to pay, less credible is the guarantee promise and hence more weak are the institutions and the reputation mechanisms. A model to comparative institutional analysis proposed here, departing from these arguments, use the hedonic price analysis to isolate the e¤ect of the guarantee over the price charged in one product. Further, an opinion survey tries to connect the results of the regression analysis to institutional environment and reputation mechanisms. Some research lines are proposed at end, and some conclusions about institutional reform are made.

Note: Downloadable document is in Portuguese.

Keywords: Direitos de Propriedade, Direitos do Consumidor, Desenvolvimento Econômico

JEL Classifications: K42, O17, M31

Working Paper Series