On the structure of standardly stratified algebras

In the first part of the paper we give a characterization for an associative algebra to be standardly stratified in the sense of Cline, Parshall and Scott, generalizing a theorem of V. Dlab. In the second part of the paper we construct characteristic tilting modules for standardly stratified algebras and use them to estimate the finitistic dimension of such algebras. These tilting modules give rise to the Ringel duality concept for stratified algebras. We also define and investigate a generalization of the notion of properly stratified algebras to the above setup.