Synthetic Assets Play a Standardisation Role

Boris Johnson famously claimed that it was “absolutely crazy” that the EU was dictating specifications for vacuum cleaners and the size of bananas. This quickly became an urban myth abundantly used by Brexiters. It turns out that the regulation does not ban anything. It is imposing some quality standard. “Extra class” bananas should be “free from malformation or abnormal curvature”. “Class 2” can have full scale “defect of shape”. The regulation is meant to ensure supermarkets know what is inside their boxes of bananas hence protecting consumers.