Resumen

CASTILLO LOPEZ, Ricardo; COMPES LOPEZ, Raúl  y  MORALES ESPINOZA, Agustín. Calidad agroalimentaria, mercado y estado: Una interpretación neoinstitucional. Agroalim [online]. 2008, vol.13, n.26, pp.51-62. ISSN 1316-0354.

This article aims to promote a scientific debate about the real role of markets in relation to quality. To meet this objective, theoretical approaches that maintain the idea that markets generate necessary incentives to solve asymmetric information and quality related opportunistic behavior problems are questioned here, specifically using the corresponding application to the agro-food products. The thesis that state intervention permits solving some problems, which the market itself could not solve, is supported by the authors in this research. As such, the proposal that achieving agro-food products quality must be analyzed as a result of the complementary relationship between the market's own mechanisms and those implemented by the government's ones is concluded.

Palabras clave : quality; agro-food system; transaction costs; neo-institutional economics; signaling mechanism; market; state.