The Economic Analysis Of Food Safety Supervision

In recent years, the problem of food safety has never went out of our vision, from the"Mad Cow Disease"to"Bird Flu", from"Sudan Red"to"Poisonous Milk", the unsafe food have threatened people's life and property seriously."people are the root of a nation, food is the heaven of people ,and safety is a necessity of food"It can be imagined that if the basic food safety couldn't be guaranteed, people tend to be fluctuate in mind, which will become an unstable factor of society, thus it would affect social stability and economy growth. Guarantee the food safety is a must to stabilize society and develop economy, and it couldn't be delayed.The particularity of food safety problem is in that it won't disappear with the technology progress and economy development automatically, but take on an increase trend because of technology progress and the popularity of mechanization. The information of food safety between the manufactures and customers is asymmetrical, which can easily cause consume fraud and damage. The market is failure at this, the government should arrange practical and integrated control system, supervise and manage the production and sale of food strictly, in order to ensure the food safety. At present, the problem of food safety is still severe, and the writer believes we should seek to solve the puzzle from the system, the existence of related system's bug and the lack of some system are the main reason of bringing food safety problem. It could only be solved when the system is integrated.In the process of analysis, the paper concentrates on supervision theory and food safety supervision theory first. As far as supervision theory is concerned, I clarify the concept of supervision, regulation and control, and then introduce and evaluate different branches of supervision theory: public interest theory, captured theory and economic supervision theory. Next the paper introduces the frontier of the theory: incomplete legal theory. While the theoretical study of food safety supervision includes two parts: product quality and food safety. The paper involves representative Hand rules and some other mainstream research achievements in law and economics field about the former, and about the latter, I summarize the latest research results of Mary. Nestle and John M. Antle, providing research directions of our country: international comparative study; the study of manufacture conduct and the regulation and supervision of government, believing that related study still drops behind at home, especially about the system.Particularly, this paper explores the situation and problem of food safety supervision in China. Firstly, the situation of food safety in our country is introduced, and the writer applies the theory of market failure to explain the phenomenon, such as information asymmetry, external effects and public goods. Next, sort out our existing food safety monitoring system. The two major components of the regulatory system -- the laws and regulations related to food safety and the food safety management system of government are summarized and analyzed. Firstly, differentiate the laws and regulations as the following four parts: all-around, specialized, particular for new food and resources, about food supply chain, then draw the conclusion that there're some shortcomings in law system about food safety of our country. China has set up a basic legal system of food safety regulation. However, the absence of a fundamental law of food safety, being lack of integrality, compatibility, strictness of related law, low-level legal effect, light penalty of law undermine the efficiency of law enforcement. Next summarize the food safety management system of our country, make a statement of the function of each regulatory body, and the writer finds that the phenomenon of"multiple management"is serious, the functions of different organizations overlap, the ambiguous of power and responsibility has greatly affected the quality of food safety supervision. Finally, analyze how to complement the system of food safety regulatory in economic aspect, during this, apply the incomplete legal theory to it, believe that authorize the regulatory body of food safety to have some remaining legislative power and enforcement power is necessary. In the following part, make a cost-benefit analysis, take the deduction of people's health risk as the benefit, while the abidance cost assumed by the food industry and consumers and etc. as the cost. The writer takes advantage of the quality difference model of John M. Antle, incorporating supervision's influence on cost, finding that supervision cost will vary with different regulatory intensity, and in the last, draw a conclusion that regulatory intensity should be concerned in the reality, in order to maximize the efficiency of supervision.The supervision system of food safety in western countries is relatively better, which could be used as a reference to China, the paper makes a comparative study with the example of USA and European Union, exploring the advantage and disadvantage of them respectively. The author believes complementing the law is a must to guarantee, and an unified authority organization is needed to manage and restrict the whole system of food safety supervision, and the supervisors should also adjust measures to local conditions. The conclusions could be used as a reference to improve system of food safety regulation.The policy advices are mainly divided into five aspects: Firstly, improve the effectiveness of laws and regulations in food safety supervision field, enact"Food Security Act"as soon as possible, strengthen the compatibility of existed law, increase penalties, and embody the authority of law. Secondly, improve the regulatory system and establish an unified regulatory bodies; cut the redundant bodies, form a supervision system with vivid power and responsibility, strengthen the cooperation and coordination with the judicial system. Thirdly, strengthen the force of society supervision, play a full role of the consumer association and public voice. Next, improve information quality about food, guarantee the effective spread of information among manufactures and consumers, supervisors and consumers, supervisors and manufactures. Finally, improve the test technology of food quality. Above recommendations are emphasized with the purpose of curbing the occurrence of food safety problem, and guaranteeing the life and property of people.