If you want to make sure your new Whirlpool refrigerator really is meeting the efficiency standards of Energy Star compliance, as the manufacturer claims, is it better to test that claim by relying on regulators at the U.S. Department of Energy—or one of Whirlpool’s competitors?

A new study co-authored by Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Erica L. Plambeck offers an intriguing and somewhat surprising answer.

“The main point of the paper is that [competing] firms do have an incentive to test their competitors’ products, and it may be optimal for society to take advantage of that,” says Plambeck, the Charles A. Holloway Professor of Operations, Information, and Technology at Stanford GSB. “Competitors have a really important role to play, and that’s something we should encourage.”

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