Browsing by Author "Osorio Fontalva, Tomas Andres"

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    Certifying More Than Quality: An Econometric Analysis of Incentives in Chile’s Accreditation Process
    (2025) Osorio Fontalva, Tomas Andres; Fleitas Perla, Sebastian Excequiel; Artiles Gonzalez, Miriam; Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Instituto de Economía
    Credible third-party certification plays a pivotal role in markets plagued by information asymmetries. However, its design faces a fundamental dilemma: while the certifier must signal quality truthfully, it may also be exposed to incentives—political, commercial, or relational—that bias its judgments. Economic theory predicts that, in the absence of strong governance and transparency, certification may shift from protecting consumers to serving the interests of certifiers or powerful stakeholders. This thesis contributes to that literature by exploiting a natural experiment: Chile’s 2018 reform, which expanded government oversight over the Comisión Nacional de Acreditación (CNA). Using a public 2014--2024 panel of programs, municipal electoral data, and commissioner biographies, I test whether the probability of a program being accredited is associated with political alignment or prior ties between commissioners and institutions. The results show no partisan bias but reveal a modest network effect, suggesting that while Chile’s accreditation regime is largely resilient to capture, relational influence still plays a role at the margin.