IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0110233.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reputation and Competition in a Hidden Action Model

Author

Listed:
  • Alessandro Fedele
  • Piero Tedeschi

Abstract

The economics models of reputation and quality in markets can be classified in three categories. (i) Pure hidden action, where only one type of seller is present who can provide goods of different quality. (ii) Pure hidden information, where sellers of different types have no control over product quality. (iii) Mixed frameworks, which include both hidden action and hidden information. In this paper we develop a pure hidden action model of reputation and Bertrand competition, where consumers and firms interact repeatedly in a market with free entry. The price of the good produced by the firms is contractible, whilst the quality is noncontractible, hence it is promised by the firms when a contract is signed. Consumers infer future quality from all available information, i.e., both from what they know about past quality and from current prices. According to early contributions, competition should make reputation unable to induce the production of high-quality goods. We provide a simple solution to this problem by showing that high quality levels are sustained as an outcome of a stationary symmetric equilibrium.

Suggested Citation

  • Alessandro Fedele & Piero Tedeschi, 2014. "Reputation and Competition in a Hidden Action Model," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(10), pages 1-11, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0110233
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0110233
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0110233
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0110233&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0110233?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. Kreps, David M. & Wilson, Robert, 1982. "Reputation and imperfect information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 253-279, August.
    2. Bar-Isaac, Heski & Tadelis, Steven, 2008. "Seller Reputation," Foundations and Trends(R) in Microeconomics, now publishers, vol. 4(4), pages 273-351, August.
    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. Zvika Neeman & Aniko Öry & Jungju Yu, 2019. "The benefit of collective reputation," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 50(4), pages 787-821, December.
    2. Stefano Castriota & Alessandro Fedele, 2021. "Does Excellence Pay Off? Theory and Evidence from the Wine Market," BEMPS - Bozen Economics & Management Paper Series BEMPS77, Faculty of Economics and Management at the Free University of Bozen.

    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. Ekmekci, Mehmet & Gossner, Olivier & Wilson, Andrea, 2012. "Impermanent types and permanent reputations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(1), pages 162-178.
    2. Claudia Keser & Maximilian Späth, 2020. "The Value of Bad Ratings: An Experiment on the Impact of Distortions in Reputation Systems," CIRANO Working Papers 2020s-22, CIRANO.
    3. Butler, Jeffrey V. & Carbone, Enrica & Conzo, Pierluigi & Spagnolo, Giancarlo, 2020. "Past performance and entry in procurement: An experimental investigation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 179-195.
    4. Jeanine Miklós-Thal, 2012. "Linking reputations through umbrella branding," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 335-374, September.
    5. Alp E. Atakan & Mehmet Ekmekci, 2012. "Reputation in Long-Run Relationships," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(2), pages 451-480.
    6. Gary E. Bolton & David J. Kusterer & Johannes Mans, 2015. "Inflated reputations: Uncertainty, leniency & moral wiggle room in trader feedback systems," Cologne Graduate School Working Paper Series 06-04, Cologne Graduate School in Management, Economics and Social Sciences, revised 29 Jul 2016.
    7. Gary Bolton & Ben Greiner & Axel Ockenfels, 2013. "Engineering Trust: Reciprocity in the Production of Reputation Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(2), pages 265-285, January.
    8. Ekmekci, Mehmet, 2011. "Sustainable reputations with rating systems," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 479-503, March.
    9. Heski Bar-Isaac & Joyee Deb, 2012. "Reputation for a Servant of Two Masters," Working Papers 12-08, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    10. Gary E. Bolton & David J. Kusterer & Johannes Mans, 2019. "Inflated Reputations: Uncertainty, Leniency, and Moral Wiggle Room in Trader Feedback Systems," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(11), pages 5371-5391, November.
    11. Camille Chaserant & Sophie Harnay, 2015. "Self-regulation of the legal profession and quality in the market for legal services: an economic analysis of lawyers’ reputation," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 431-449, April.
    12. Jianyu Yu & Zohra Bouamra-Mechemache & Angelo Zago, 2018. "What is in a Name? Information, Heterogeneity, and Quality in a Theory of Nested Names," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 100(1), pages 286-310.
    13. Prat, Andrea & Halac, Marina, 2014. "Managerial Attention and Worker Engagement," CEPR Discussion Papers 10035, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Keser, Claudia & Späth, Maximilian, 2020. "The value of bad ratings: An experiment on the impact of distortions in reputation systems," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 389, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    15. Liu, Qingmin & Skrzypacz, Andrzej, 2014. "Limited records and reputation bubbles," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 2-29.
    16. Miklos-Thal, Jeanine, 2008. "Linking Reputations: The Signaling and Feedback Effects of Umbrella Branding," MPRA Paper 11045, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Cai, Hongbin & Jin, Ginger Zhe & Liu, Chong & Zhou, Li-an, 2014. "Seller reputation: From word-of-mouth to centralized feedback," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 51-65.
    18. Bar-Isaac Heski, 2012. "Transparency, Career Concerns, and Incentives for Acquiring Expertise," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-15, January.
    19. Paulson Gjerde, Kathy A. & Slotnick, Susan A., 2004. "Quality and reputation: The effects of external and internal factors over time," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 1-20, May.
    20. Janvier D. Nkurunziza, 2005. "Reputation and Credit without Collateral in Africa`s Formal Banking," Economics Series Working Papers WPS/2005-02, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.

    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:plo:pone00:0110233. 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.