IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/kud/kuiedp/0412.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Reciprocity, Social Ties, and Competition in Markets for Experience Goods

Author

Listed:
  • Steffen Huck

    (University College London)

  • Jean-Robert Tyran

    (Institute of Economics, University of Copenhagen)

Abstract

Reciprocal customers may disproportionately improve the performance of markets for experience goods. Reciprocal customers reward (punish) firms for providing good (bad) quality by upholding (terminating) the customer relation. This may induce firms to provide good quality which, in turn, may induce a positive externality for nonreciprocal customers who would, in the absence of reciprocal types, face market breakdown. This efficiency-enhancing effect of reciprocity is boosted when there are social ties between consumers and competition between firms. The existence of social ties or competition alone does not improve market performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Steffen Huck & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2004. "Reciprocity, Social Ties, and Competition in Markets for Experience Goods," Discussion Papers 04-12, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:kud:kuiedp:0412
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.ku.dk/english/research/publications/wp/2004/0412.pdf/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2000. "Fairness and Retaliation: The Economics of Reciprocity," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 159-181, Summer.
    2. Renner, Elke & Tyran, Jean-Robert, 2004. "Price rigidity in customer markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 55(4), pages 575-593, December.
    3. Kreps, David M. & Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John & Wilson, Robert, 1982. "Rational cooperation in the finitely repeated prisoners' dilemma," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 245-252, August.
    4. Martin Brown & Armin Falk & Ernst Fehr, 2004. "Relational Contracts and the Nature of Market Interactions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(3), pages 747-780, May.
    5. Weisbuch, Gerard & Kirman, Alan & Herreiner, Dorothea, 2000. "Market Organisation and Trading Relationships," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(463), pages 411-436, April.
    6. Edward L. Glaeser & Bruce I. Sacerdote & Jose A. Scheinkman, 2003. "The Social Multiplier," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(2-3), pages 345-353, 04/05.
    7. Harvey Leibenstein, 1987. "On Some Economic Aspects of a Fragile Input: Trust," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: George R. Feiwel (ed.), Arrow and the Foundations of the Theory of Economic Policy, chapter 21, pages 600-612, Palgrave Macmillan.
    8. von Ungern-Sternberg, Thomas & von Weizsacker, Carl Christian, 1985. "The Supply of Quality on a Market for "Experience Goods."," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(4), pages 531-551, June.
    9. John G. Riley, 2001. "Silver Signals: Twenty-Five Years of Screening and Signaling," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(2), pages 432-478, June.
    10. Harvey James, 2002. "The Trust Paradox: A Survey of Economic Inquiries Into the Nature of Trust and Trustworthiness," Microeconomics 0202001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Nelson, Phillip, 1970. "Information and Consumer Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(2), pages 311-329, March-Apr.
    12. James Jr., Harvey S., 2002. "The trust paradox: a survey of economic inquiries into the nature of trust and trustworthiness," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 291-307, March.
    13. George A. Akerlof, 1970. "The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 84(3), pages 488-500.
    14. Julio J. Rotemberg, 2002. "Customer Anger at Price Increases, Time Variation in the Frequency of Price Changes and Monetary Policy," NBER Working Papers 9320, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Florian Baumann & Tim Friehe & Kristoffel Grechenig, 2010. "Switching Consumers and Product Liability: On the Optimality of Incomplete Strict Liability," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2010_03, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    2. Bauernschuster, Stefan & Falck, Oliver & Große, Niels, 2013. "When trustors compete for the favour of a trustee – A laboratory experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 133-147.
    3. Huck, Steffen & Lünser, Gabriele K. & Tyran, Jean-Robert, 2012. "Competition fosters trust," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 195-209.
    4. Roman Hoffmann & Bernhard Kittel & Mattias Larsen, 2021. "Information exchange in laboratory markets: competition, transfer costs, and the emergence of reputation," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(1), pages 118-142, March.
    5. Baumann, Florian & Friehe, Tim & Grechenig, Kristoffel, 2011. "A note on the optimality of (even more) incomplete strict liability," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 77-82, June.

    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. Michel Zouboulakis, 2010. "Trustworthiness as a Moral Determinant of Economic Activity: Lessons from the Classics," Forum for Social Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(3), pages 209-221, January.
    2. Uwe Jirjahn & Vanessa Lange, 2015. "Reciprocity and Workers’ Tastes for Representation," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 36(2), pages 188-209, June.
    3. Stephen Standifird & Marc Weinstein, 2007. "The Transaction Cost Economics of Market-based Exchange: The Impact of Reputation and External Verification Agencies," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(3), pages 409-431.
    4. Fali Huang, 2003. "Social Trust, Cooperation, and Human Capital," Working Papers 01-2004, Singapore Management University, School of Economics, revised Jan 2004.
    5. Kanagaretnam, Kiridaran & Mestelman, Stuart & Khalid Nainar, S.M. & Shehata, Mohamed, 2012. "The impact of empowering investors on trust and trustworthiness," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 566-577.
    6. Ben-Ner, Avner & Putterman, Louis & Ren, Ting, 2011. "Lavish returns on cheap talk: Two-way communication in trust games," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 1-13, February.
    7. Sven Hoeppner, 2014. "The unintended consequence of doorstep consumer protection: surprise, reciprocation, and consistency," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 247-276, October.
    8. Dato, Simon & Grunewald, Andreas & Kräkel, Matthias & Müller, Daniel, 2016. "Asymmetric employer information, promotions, and the wage policy of firms," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 273-300.
    9. Armin Falk & David Huffman & W. Bentley Macleod, 2015. "Institutions and Contract Enforcement," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(3), pages 571-590.
    10. Helena Lopes, 2008. "From Self‐Interest Motives to Justice Motives: The Challenges of Some Experimental Results," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(2), pages 287-313, April.
    11. John A. List, 2006. "The Behavioralist Meets the Market: Measuring Social Preferences and Reputation Effects in Actual Transactions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(1), pages 1-37, February.
    12. Herz, Holger & Schmutzler, Armin & Volk, André, 2019. "Cooperation and mistrust in relational contracts," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 366-380.
    13. Christian Lukas & Jens Robert Schöndube, 2008. "Trust and Adaptive Learning in Implicit Contracts," FEMM Working Papers 08017, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Faculty of Economics and Management.
    14. Jordi Brandts & Arno Riedl & Frans van Winden, 2004. "Competition and Well-Being," Working Papers 120, Barcelona School of Economics.
    15. Zago, Angelo M. & Pick, Daniel H., 2004. "Labeling Policies in Food Markets: Private Incentives, Public Intervention, and Welfare Effects," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 29(1), pages 1-16, April.
    16. Fali Huang, 2007. "Building Social Trust: A Human-Capital Approach," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 163(4), pages 552-573, December.
    17. Huck, Steffen & Lünser, Gabriele K. & Tyran, Jean-Robert, 2012. "Competition fosters trust," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 195-209.
    18. Marie-Laure Cabon-Dhersin & Shyama V. Ramani, 2007. "Opportunism, Trust and Cooperation," Rationality and Society, , vol. 19(2), pages 203-228, May.
    19. Werner Raub & Vincent Buskens & Vincenz Frey, 2019. "Strategic tie formation for long-term exchange relations," Rationality and Society, , vol. 31(4), pages 490-510, November.
    20. Ben-Ner, Avner & Putterman, Louis, 2009. "Trust, communication and contracts: An experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(1-2), pages 106-121, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    social networks; reputation; reciprocity; experience goods; customer loyalty;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:kud:kuiedp:0412. 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: Thomas Hoffmann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/okokudk.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.