We present a leverage theory of reputation building with co-branding. We show that under certain conditions, co-branding that links unknown firms in a new sector with established firms in a mature sector allows the unknown firms to signal a high product quality and establish their own reputation. We compare this situation with a benchmark in which both sectors are new and firms signal their quality only with prices. We investigate how this comparison is affected by the nature of the technology linking the two sectors and a cross-sector inference problem that consumers might face in identifying the true cause of product failure. We find that co-branding facilitates the process in which a Þrm in the new sector to signal its product quality only if the co-branding sectors produce complementary inputs and consumers face a cross-sector inference problem. We apply our insight to economics of superstars, multinational firms and co-authorship.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. 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.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra in its series Economics Working Papers with number
1019.
Find related papers by JEL classification: D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality M31 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Marketing
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
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.: