IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/gamebe/v63y2008i2p498-526.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

When is reputation bad?

Author

Listed:
  • Ely, Jeffrey
  • Fudenberg, Drew
  • Levine, David K.

Abstract

In traditional reputation models, the ability to build a reputation is good for the long-run player. In [Ely, J., Valimaki, J., 2003. Bad reputation. NAJ Econ. 4, 2; http://www.najecon.org/v4.htm. Quart. J. Econ. 118 (2003) 785-814], Ely and Valimaki give an example in which reputation is unambiguously bad. This paper characterizes a class of games in which that insight holds. The key to bad reputation is that participation is optional for the short-run players, and that every action of the long-run player that makes the short-run players want to participate has a chance of being interpreted as a signal that the long-run player is "bad." We allow a broad set of commitment types, allowing many types, including the "Stackelberg type" used to prove positive results on reputation. Although reputation need not be bad if the probability of the Stackelberg type is too high, the relative probability of the Stackelberg type can be high when all commitment types are unlikely.

Suggested Citation

  • Ely, Jeffrey & Fudenberg, Drew & Levine, David K., 2008. "When is reputation bad?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 498-526, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:63:y:2008:i:2:p:498-526
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899-8256(06)00105-9
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. George J. Mailath & Larry Samuelson, "undated". "Your Reputation Is Who You're Not, Not Who You'd Like To Be," Penn CARESS Working Papers bb1b279d6539c9ed3b83a027c, Penn Economics Department.
    2. Drew Fudenberg & David M. Kreps, 1987. "Reputation in the Simultaneous Play of Multiple Opponents," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 54(4), pages 541-568.
    3. Jeffrey C. Ely & Juuso Välimäki, 2003. "Bad Reputation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 118(3), pages 785-814.
    4. George J. Mailath & Larry Samuelson, 2001. "Who Wants a Good Reputation?," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 68(2), pages 415-441.
    5. Drew Fudenberg & David K. Levine, 2008. "Reputation And Equilibrium Selection In Games With A Patient Player," World Scientific Book Chapters,in: A Long-Run Collaboration On Long-Run Games, chapter 7, pages 123-142 World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. Fudenberg Drew & Levine David K., 1994. "Efficiency and Observability with Long-Run and Short-Run Players," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 103-135, February.
    7. Marco Celentani & Drew Fudenberg & David K. Levine & Wolfgang Pesendorfer, 1996. "Maintaining a Reputation against a Patient Opponent," Levine's Working Paper Archive 2015, David K. Levine.
    8. Stephen Morris, 2001. "Political Correctness," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(2), pages 231-265, April.
    9. Drew Fudenberg & David M. Kreps & Eric S. Maskin, 1990. "Repeated Games with Long-run and Short-run Players," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 57(4), pages 555-573.
    10. Kreps, David M. & Wilson, Robert, 1982. "Reputation and imperfect information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 253-279, August.
    11. Fudenberg, Drew & Levine, David I & Maskin, Eric, 1994. "The Folk Theorem with Imperfect Public Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(5), pages 997-1039, September.
    12. Drew Fudenberg & David K. Levine, 2008. "Maintaining a Reputation when Strategies are Imperfectly Observed," World Scientific Book Chapters,in: A Long-Run Collaboration On Long-Run Games, chapter 8, pages 143-161 World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    13. Celentani, Marco, et al, 1996. "Maintaining a Reputation against a Long-Lived Opponent," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(3), pages 691-704, May.
    14. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1982. "Predation, reputation, and entry deterrence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 280-312, August.
    15. Sorin, Sylvain, 1999. "Merging, Reputation, and Repeated Games with Incomplete Information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 29(1-2), pages 274-308, October.
    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. Andrea Prat, 2005. "The Wrong Kind of Transparency," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 862-877, June.
    2. Drew Fudenberg & David K. Levine & Satoru Takahashi, 2008. "Perfect public equilibrium when players are patient," World Scientific Book Chapters,in: A Long-Run Collaboration On Long-Run Games, chapter 16, pages 345-367 World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    3. Alexander Frankel & Michael Schwarz, 2009. "Experts and Their Records," NBER Working Papers 14921, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Aperjis, Christina & Zeckhauser, Richard J. & Miao, Yali, 2014. "Variable temptations and black mark reputations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 70-90.
    5. Kawai, Keiichi, 2015. "Reputation for quality and adverse selection," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 47-59.
    6. Zuazo-Garin, Peio, 2017. "Uncertain information structures and backward induction," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 135-151.
    7. Mailath, George J. & Samuelson, Larry, 2015. "Reputations in Repeated Games," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications, Elsevier.
    8. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2006. "Media Bias and Reputation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(2), pages 280-316, April.
    9. José A. Rodrigues-Neto, 2008. "Climate Change Policy: A Theorist’s Plea to Take Heed of Game Theory and Ambiguity Aversion," Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics, vol. 15(2), pages 85-92.
    10. Sedlacek, Sabine & Maier, Gunther, 2012. "Green Building Councils: Their Economic Role as Governance Institutions," SRE-Discussion Papers 3419, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    11. repec:oup:rcorpf:v:2:y:2014:i:2:p:129-153. is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Kyna Fong, 2007. "Evaluating Skilled Experts: Optimal Scoring Rules for Surgeons," Discussion Papers 07-043, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    13. Mihaela Schaar & Simpson Zhang, 2015. "A dynamic model of certification and reputation," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 58(3), pages 509-541, April.
    14. Pierre-Yves Yanni, 2012. "Coarse Information and Entrepreneurial Risk Choice," 2012 Meeting Papers 1142, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    15. Dasgupta, Amil & Sarafidis, Yianis, 2009. "Managers as administrators: Reputation and incentives," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(1-2), pages 155-163, May.
    16. Sedlacek, Sabine & Maier, Gunther, 2012. "Can green building councils serve as third party governance institutions? An economic and institutional analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 479-487.
    17. Van Gorder, Robert A. & Caputo, Michael R., 2010. "Envelope theorems for locally differentiable open-loop Stackelberg equilibria of finite horizon differential games," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1123-1139, June.
    18. Bouvard, Matthieu & Levy, Raphael, 2013. "Two-sided reputation in certification markets," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 446, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General

    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:eee:gamebe:v:63:y:2008:i:2:p:498-526. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Dana Niculescu). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622836 .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.