学术报告会——曾道智 (Daozhi Zeng)

Speaker: Dr. 曾道智 (Daozhi Zeng)

Title: A Study on Quality Regulations

Schedule: Sep 23, Monday 10:00-11:30

Location: 诚明楼 (Chengming Hall), Rm 315


Introduction: 曾道智,1996年获得日本京都大学应用数学博士学位,现为日本东北大学研究生信息科学研究科教授,博士生导师。长期致力于空间经济学等研究,成果涉及城市经济学、区域经济学、国际贸易、环境经济学、实验经济学等多个学科,发表SSCI论文60余篇,研究成果曾发表在《Journal of Development Economics》、《Journal of Urban Economics》、《Journal of Regional Science》、《Journal of Economic Geography》等空间经济学领域的顶级期刊,累计引用400余次,具有广泛的社会影响力。现在担任学术期刊Journal of Systems Science and Complexity, Papers in Regional Science, Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, Asian Journal of Management Science and Applications的编辑委员。任日本应用区域学会、中国区域科学学会的理事,历任浙江大学、中国科学院、上海财经大学、东北大学客座教授,中南财经政法大学 “文澜讲座教授”。

Abstract: The CES utility function is widely used in building general equilibrium models in various fields such as economic geography and trade theory, playing a significant role in the development of spatial economics. However, recent studies have found that CES is difficult to use for policy analysis. I use quality control policy as an example to introduce the problems caused by CES and how these issues can be addressed through non-CES approaches. Specifically, I examine how heterogeneous firms enhance competitiveness by improving product quality from both market equilibrium and optimal perspectives using quasi-linear utility, revealing distortions in equilibrium markets in terms of product quality and output. The results show that high-efficiency firms tend to underinvest in quality, while low-efficiency firms have disproportionately high-quality levels. Based on this, we further analyze the impact of government regulation of quality standards on welfare. The study suggests that if the basic demand for a product is relatively high, slightly raising the minimum quality standard can improve social welfare.