How Effective are Electronic Reputation Mechanisms? An Experimental Investigation
Electronic reputation or "feedback" mechanisms aim to mitigate the moral hazard problems associated with exchange among strangers by providing the type of information available in more traditional close-knit groups, where members are frequently involved in one another's dealings. In this paper, we compare trading in a market with online feedback (as implemented by many Internet markets) to a market without feedback, as well as to a market in which the same people interact with one another repeatedly (partners market). We find that, while the feedback mechanism induces quite a substantial improvement in transaction efficiency, it also exhibits a kind of public goods problem in that, unlike in the partners market, the benefits of trust and trustworthy behavior go to the whole community and are not completely internalized. We discuss the implications of this perspective for improving feedback systems.
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| Length: | |
| Date of creation: | 26 Nov 2003 |
| Publication status: | Published in Management Science, Vol. 50, Number 11, Nov. 2004, 1587-1602 |
| Handle: | RePEc:kls:series:0003 |
| Contact details of provider: | Postal: Albertus Magnus Platz, 50923 Köln Phone: 0221 / 470 5607 Fax: 0221 / 470 5179 Web page: http://www.wiso.uni-koeln.de Email: More information through EDIRC
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