U.S. Food Quality Standards: Fix for Market Failure or Costly Anachronism?

Gardner discusses the longstanding attempts to combat non-lethal mischief by food purveyors. The fact that no regulatory impact analyses have attempted to quantify consumer benefits other than safety/health benefits suggests that those other benefits may be small. The likelihood of net benefits appears to have been greater in earlier decades, when the adulteration of foods was a more serious problem and private sources of information through the branding of products and sellers, food-related publications, and private evaluation services were less prevalent.