IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/randje/v41y2010i1p199-214.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Experts and quacks

Author

Listed:
  • Jeremy A. Sandford

Abstract

What happens when “type” is endogenous in a reputational setting? Here, customers cannot tell “experts” from imitative “quacks,” but gain information through repeated interaction. Firm incentives to invest in expertise vary nonmonotonically in how tolerant customers are of bad outcomes; more tolerant customers are both more forgiving, making expertise less necessary, and longer tenured, increasing the value of retaining them. In equilibrium, the proportion of expert firms is bounded away from one; some quacks are necessary to keep incentives of experts in line. The fraction of experts is decreasing in customers' switching costs and the relative cost of expertise over quackery.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeremy A. Sandford, 2010. "Experts and quacks," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 41(1), pages 199-214, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:randje:v:41:y:2010:i:1:p:199-214
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1756-2171.2009.00096.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1756-2171.2009.00096.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1756-2171.2009.00096.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Johannes Hörner, 2002. "Reputation and Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(3), pages 644-663, June.
    2. Klein, Benjamin & Saft, Lester F, 1985. "The Law and Economics of Franchise Tying Contracts," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(2), pages 345-361, May.
    3. Rafael Rob & Tadashi Sekiguchi, 2006. "Reputation and turnover," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(2), pages 341-361, June.
    4. Taylor, Curtis R, 1995. "The Economics of Breakdowns, Checkups, and Cures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(1), pages 53-74, February.
    5. Ran Spiegler, 2006. "The Market for Quacks," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(4), pages 1113-1131.
    6. Jean Tirole, 1996. "A Theory of Collective Reputations (with applications to the persistence of corruption and to firm quality)," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 63(1), pages 1-22.
    7. George J. Mailath & Larry Samuelson, 2001. "Who Wants a Good Reputation?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 68(2), pages 415-441.
    8. Rubin, Paul H, 1978. "The Theory of the Firm and the Structure of the Franchise Contract," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(1), pages 223-233, April.
    9. Asher Wolinsky, 1993. "Competition in a Market for Informed Experts' Services," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 24(3), pages 380-398, Autumn.
    10. Leland, Hayne E, 1979. "Quacks, Lemons, and Licensing: A Theory of Minimum Quality Standards," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(6), pages 1328-1346, December.
    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


    Cited by:

    1. Ajit Mishra & Andrew Samuel, 2018. "Law Enforcement And Wrongful Arrests With Endogenously (In)Competent Officers," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(2), pages 1417-1436, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kyungha Kari Lee & Carolyn B. Levine, 2020. "Audit partner identification and audit quality," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 778-809, June.
    2. Omer Moav & Zvika Neeman, 2004. "Inspection in Markets for Experience Goods," Discussion Paper Series dp349, The Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
    3. Stefano Castriota & Marco Delmastro, 2010. "Individual and Collective Reputation: Lessons from the Wine Market," L'industria, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 1, pages 149-172.
    4. Hongbin Cai & Ichiro Obara, 2009. "Firm reputation and horizontal integration," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 40(2), pages 340-363, June.
    5. Luís Almeida Costa & Luís Vasconcelos, 2010. "Share the Fame or Share the Blame? The Reputational Implications of Partnerships," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 259-301, June.
    6. Chen, Yong & Mak, Barry & Li, Zhou, 2013. "Quality deterioration in package tours: The interplay of asymmetric information and reputation," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 43-54.
    7. Hongbin Cai & Ichiro Obara, 2009. "Firm reputation and horizontal integration," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 40(2), pages 340-363, June.
    8. Dulleck, Uwe & Kerschbamer, Rudolf, 2003. "Price Discrimination in Markets for Experts' Services," CEPR Discussion Papers 4155, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Heski Bar-Isaac, 2007. "Something to prove: reputation in teams," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(2), pages 495-511, June.
    10. Ahlin, Christian & Kim, In Kyung & Kim, Kyoo il, 2021. "Who commits fraud? evidence from korean gas stations," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    11. Dilmé, Francesc, 2019. "Dynamic quality signaling with hidden actions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 116-136.
    12. Alexander Rasch & Christian Waibel, 2018. "What Drives Fraud in a Credence Goods Market? – Evidence from a Field Study," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 80(3), pages 605-624, June.
    13. Bester, Helmut & Ouyang, Yaofu, 2018. "Optimal procurement of a credence good under limited liability," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 96-129.
    14. Helmut Bester & Matthias Dahm, 2018. "Credence Goods, Costly Diagnosis and Subjective Evaluation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(611), pages 1367-1394, June.
    15. Silva, Francisco, 2022. "The value of uncertainty in determining an expert's source of expertise," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 379-388.
    16. Bandyopadhyay, Siddhartha, 2013. "Market thickness, prices and honesty: A quality demand trap," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 52-59.
    17. Francisco Ledesma & Manuel Navarro & Jorge Perez-Rodriguez, 2005. "Return to tourist destination. Is it reputation, after all?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(18), pages 2055-2065.
    18. Aleix Calveras & Juan José Ganuza, 2004. "Responsabilidad social corporativa. Una visión desde la teoría económica," Economics Working Papers 797, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    19. Schumacher, Heiner, 2014. "Incentives through consumer learning about tastes," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 170-177.
    20. Franziska Rischkowsky & Thomas Döring, 2008. "Consumer Policy in a Market Economy Considerations from the Perspective of the Economics of Information, the New Institutional Economics as well as Behavioural Economics," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 285-313, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:randje:v:41:y:2010:i:1:p:199-214. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/randdus.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.