Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Reputation and Competition

Contents:

Author Info

  • Johannes H�rner
Registered author(s):

    Abstract

    This paper shows how competition generates reputation-building behavior in repeated interactions when the product quality observed by consumers is a noisy signal of firms' effort level. There are two types of firms and "good" firms try to distinguish themselves from "bad" firms. Although consumers get convinced that firms which are repeatedly successful in providing high quality are good firms, competition endogenously generates the outside option inducing disappointed consumers to leave firms. This threat of exit induces good firms to choose high effort, allowing good reputations to be valuable, but its uncompromising execution forces good firms out of the market. (JEL C7, D8)

    Download Info

    If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/00028280260136444
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

    Bibliographic Info

    Article provided by American Economic Association in its journal American Economic Review.

    Volume (Year): 92 (2002)
    Issue (Month): 3 (June)
    Pages: 644-663

    as in new window
    Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:92:y:2002:i:3:p:644-663

    Note: DOI: 10.1257/00028280260136444
    Contact details of provider:
    Email:
    Web page: http://www.aeaweb.org/aer/
    More information through EDIRC

    Order Information:
    Web: http://www.aeaweb.org/subscribe.html

    Related research

    Keywords:

    Find related papers by JEL classification:

    References

    References listed on IDEAS
    Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
    as in new window
    1. Steven Tadelis, 1999. "What's in a Name? Reputation as a Tradeable Asset," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 548-563, June.
    2. Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1989. "Imperfect information in the product market," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 769-847 Elsevier.
    3. Harold L. Cole & James Dow & William B. English, 1994. "Default, settlement, and signalling: lending resumption in a reputational model of sovereign debt," Staff Report 180, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    4. George J. Mailath & Larry Samuelson, 1998. "Your Reputation Is Who You're Not, Not Who You'd Like To Be," CARESS Working Papres rep-is-sep, University of Pennsylvania Center for Analytic Research and Economics in the Social Sciences.
    5. Petersen, Mitchell A & Rajan, Raghuram G, 1995. "The Effect of Credit Market Competition on Lending Relationships," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 110(2), pages 407-43, May.
    6. Diamond, Douglas W, 1989. "Reputation Acquisition in Debt Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 828-62, August.
    7. Shapiro, Carl, 1983. "Premiums for High Quality Products as Returns to Reputations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 98(4), pages 659-79, November.
    8. Martinelli, César, . "Small firms, borrowing constraints, and reputation," Open Access publications from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid info:hdl:10016/3949, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
    9. Klein, Benjamin & Leffler, Keith B, 1981. "The Role of Market Forces in Assuring Contractual Performance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(4), pages 615-41, August.
    10. Cooper, Russell & Ross, Thomas W, 1984. "Prices, Product Qualities and Asymmetric Information: The Competitive Case," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(2), pages 197-207, April.
    11. Craswell, Allen T. & Francis, Jere R. & Taylor, Stephen L., 1995. "Auditor brand name reputations and industry specializations," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 297-322, December.
    12. Nelson, Philip, 1974. "Advertising as Information," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(4), pages 729-54, July/Aug..
    13. Holmstrom, Bengt, 1999. "Managerial Incentive Problems: A Dynamic Perspective," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(1), pages 169-82, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as in new window

    Cited by:
    1. Costa, Luis Almeida e & Vasconcelos, Luis, 2008. "Share the Fame or Share the Blame? The Reputational Implications of Partnerships," FEUNL Working Paper Series wp539, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Economia.
    2. Andrew Atkeson & Christian Hellwig & Guillermo L. Ordonez, 2012. "Optimal regulation in the presence of reputation concerns," Staff Report 464, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    3. Ichiro Obara, 2004. "Firm Reputation and Horizontal Integration (with H. Cai)," UCLA Economics Online Papers 318, UCLA Department of Economics.
    4. Vlassopoulos, Michael, 2009. "Quality, reputation and the choice of organizational form," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 515-527, August.
    5. Damien S Eldridge, 2007. "A Shirking Theory of Referrals," Working Papers 2007.05, School of Economics, La Trobe University.
    6. Cai, Hongbin, 2004. "Firm Reputation and Horizontal Integration," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt6rk9f1fm, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    7. Dhillon, Amrita & Rigolini, Jamele, 2006. "Development and the interaction of enforcement institutions," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4090, The World Bank.
    8. Castriota, Stefano & Delmastro, Marco, 2008. "Individual and Collective Reputation: Lessons from the Wine Market," Working Papers 45504, American Association of Wine Economists.
    9. Chen, Liyun, 2009. "What do we pay for asymmetric information? The evolution of mechanisms in online markets," MPRA Paper 22506, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Alan D. Morrison & William J. Wilhelm Jr, 2004. "Partnership Firms, Reputation, and Human Capital," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1682-1692, December.

    Lists

    This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:92:y:2002:i:3:p:644-663

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Jane Voros) or (Michael P. Albert).

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

    If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.