Private standards are ubiquitous with virtually all packaging labelled with logos indicating products are certified under sets of rules relating to quality or environmental practices.  These types of standards have long existed in commerce and trade. They prescribe technical requirements that firms, industry associations, and non-governmental organizations use to solve coordination problems such as ensuring conformity through supply chains, and information problems, such as signaling quality of products to consumers. 

Since the 1980s these private actors have experimented with designing standards to address two additional types of problems. First, collaboration problems, for example, to ensure that all firms within an industry adopt similar voluntary environmental regulations. Second, to mitigate negative social externalities such as emissions from production, poor labor practices, or environmental degradation.

My research seeks to understand what motivates actors to pursue these arrangements, their effects on policymaking, and the extent they contribute to effective governance.