Market structure and voluntary product standards

A voluntary standard is an agreement intended to facilitate communication within an industry. Specifically, it is a technical document to describe design, material, processing, safety or performance characteristics of a product (US Federal Trade Commission, 1978). Standards serve to meet various functions: 1. to provide information such as consistent terminologies or measurement methods; 2, to ensure physical compatability between related products produced by different manufacturers; 3. to establish minimum acceptable levels of product quality; or 4. to restrict product variety so that production economies can be realized.