IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejmic/v9y2017i1p242-74.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Incentives for Quality in Friendly and Hostile Informational Environments

Author

Listed:
  • Pierre Fleckinger
  • Matthieu Glachant
  • Gabrielle Moineville

Abstract

We develop a model of costly quality provision under biased disclosure. We define as friendly an environment in which the disclosure probability increases with quality, and as hostile an environment in which the opposite holds. Hostile environments produce a positive externality among sellers and potentially multiple equilibria. In contrast, friendly environments always yield a unique equilibrium. We establish that the environment that maximizes quality generates signals contradicting buyers' expectations. Hence, hostility produces greater incentives for quality than friendliness when costs are low and monitoring resources high.

Suggested Citation

  • Pierre Fleckinger & Matthieu Glachant & Gabrielle Moineville, 2017. "Incentives for Quality in Friendly and Hostile Informational Environments," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 242-274, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:9:y:2017:i:1:p:242-74
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/mic.20150119
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mic.20150119
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=RSlZ4MNZkP-G90DmlERG1HXaV9mKMrby
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Phelps, Edmund S, 1972. "The Statistical Theory of Racism and Sexism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(4), pages 659-661, September.
    3. Levin, Jonathan, 2001. "Information and the Market for Lemons," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 32(4), pages 657-666, Winter.
    4. Gill, David & Sgroi, Daniel, 2012. "The optimal choice of pre-launch reviewer," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(3), pages 1247-1260.
    5. Abreu, Dilip & Milgrom, Paul & Pearce, David, 1991. "Information and Timing in Repeated Partnerships," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(6), pages 1713-1733, November.
    6. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2008. "Competition and Truth in the Market for News," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(2), pages 133-154, Spring.
    7. Lewis, Tracy R & Sappington, David E M, 1994. "Supplying Information to Facilitate Price Discrimination," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 35(2), pages 309-327, May.
    8. Sims, Christopher A., 2003. "Implications of rational inattention," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 665-690, April.
    9. David Dranove & Ginger Zhe Jin, 2010. "Quality Disclosure and Certification: Theory and Practice," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(4), pages 935-963, December.
    10. 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.
    11. Luís Cabral & Ali Hortaçsu, 2010. "The Dynamics Of Seller Reputation: Evidence From Ebay," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(1), pages 54-78, March.
    12. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1986. "Price and Advertising Signals of Product Quality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 796-821, August.
    13. Timothy Besley & Andrea Prat, 2006. "Handcuffs for the Grabbing Hand? Media Capture and Government Accountability," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 720-736, June.
    14. Curtis R. Taylor & Huseyin Yildirim, 2011. "Subjective Performance and the Value of Blind Evaluation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(2), pages 762-794.
    15. Charles Mason, 2011. "Eco-Labeling and Market Equilibria with Noisy Certification Tests," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 48(4), pages 537-560, April.
    16. Hyun Song Shin, 1998. "Adversarial and Inquisitorial Procedures in Arbitration," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 29(2), pages 378-405, Summer.
    17. Alessandro Lizzeri, 1999. "Information Revelation and Certification Intermediaries," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 30(2), pages 214-231, Summer.
    18. Levin Jonathan, 2009. "The Dynamics of Collective Reputation," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-25, August.
    19. Chrysanthos Dellarocas & Charles A. Wood, 2008. "The Sound of Silence in Online Feedback: Estimating Trading Risks in the Presence of Reporting Bias," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(3), pages 460-476, March.
    20. Coate, Stephen & Loury, Glenn C, 1993. "Will Affirmative-Action Policies Eliminate Negative Stereotypes?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1220-1240, December.
    21. 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.
    22. Paul R. Milgrom, 1981. "Good News and Bad News: Representation Theorems and Applications," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 12(2), pages 380-391, Autumn.
    23. Strausz, Roland, 2005. "Honest certification and the threat of capture," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 23(1-2), pages 45-62, February.
    24. George A. Akerlof, 1970. "The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(3), pages 488-500.
    25. Baron, David P., 2006. "Persistent media bias," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1-2), pages 1-36, January.
    26. Rick Harbaugh & John W. Maxwell & Beatrice Roussillon, 2011. "Label Confusion: The Groucho Effect of Uncertain Standards," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(9), pages 1512-1527, February.
    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. Pierre Fleckinger & Wanda Mimra & Angelo Zago, 2017. "The Incentive Properties of Collective Reputation," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-01952992, HAL.
    2. Patrice Cassagnard & Tendai Espinosa, 2022. "From boycott to buycott: is activism from the North good for the South?," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 158(4), pages 1107-1135, November.
    3. Heski Bar-Isaac & Joyee Deb, 2021. "Reputation With Opportunities for Coasting," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 200-236.
    4. Matthieu Glachant & Gabrielle Moineville, 2012. "The informational role of nongovernmental organizations to induce self-regulation: Cheering the leaders or booing the laggards?," Working Papers hal-00716864, HAL.

    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. Alexander E. Saak, 2017. "The Value of Delegated Quality Control," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(2), pages 309-335, June.
    2. Anthony Heyes & Sandeep Kapur & Peter W. Kennedy & Steve Martin & John W. Maxwell, 2020. "But What Does It Mean? Competition between Products Carrying Alternative Green Labels When Consumers Are Active Acquirers of Information," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 7(2), pages 243-277.
    3. Creane, Anthony & Jeitschko, Thomas D. & Sim, Kyoungbo, 2019. "Welfare effects of certification under latent adverse selection," DICE Discussion Papers 312, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    4. Creane, Anthony & Jeitschko, Thomas D. & Sim, Kyoungbo, 2022. "Welfare effects of product certification under latent adverse selection," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    5. Jeremy Bertomeu & Igor Vaysman & Wenjie Xue, 2021. "Voluntary versus mandatory disclosure," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 658-692, June.
    6. Dorothée Brécard, 2017. "Consumer misperception of eco-labels, green market structure and welfare," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 340-364, June.
    7. repec:cep:stieop:56 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Philippe Mahenc, 2017. "Honest versus Misleading Certification," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 454-483, June.
    9. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899.
    10. Dmitry Lubensky & Eric Schmidbauer, 2020. "Free Product Trials: Disclosing Quality And Match Value," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 58(4), pages 1565-1576, October.
    11. Guo Xu, 2015. "How Does Collective Reputation Affect Hiring? Selection and Sorting in an Online Labour Market," STICERD - Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers Series 056, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    12. Vincze, János, 2010. "Miért és mitől védjük a fogyasztókat?. Aszimmetrikus információ és/vagy korlátozott racionalitás [Asymmetric information and/or bounded rationality: why are consumers protected and from what?]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(9), pages 725-752.
    13. Jung, Hanjoon Michael, 2007. "Strategic Information Transmission through the Media," MPRA Paper 5556, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Oct 2007.
    14. repec:gbl:wpaper:2013-01 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Xu Guan & Yulan Wang & Zelong Yi & Ying‐Ju Chen, 2020. "Inducing Consumer Online Reviews Via Disclosure," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(8), pages 1956-1971, August.
    16. Vaccari, Federico, 2023. "Competition in costly talk," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    17. Blasco, Andrea & Sobbrio, Francesco, 2012. "Competition and commercial media bias," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 434-447.
    18. Xujin Pu & Huanzhen Zhang, 2016. "Voluntary Certification of Agricultural Products in Competitive Markets: The Consideration of Boundedly Rational Consumers," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-13, September.
    19. Alaoui, Larbi & Germano, Fabrizio, 2020. "Time scarcity and the market for news," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 173-195.
    20. Federico Vaccari, 2023. "Influential news and policy-making," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 76(4), pages 1363-1418, November.
    21. Konrad Stahl & Roland Strausz, 2017. "Certification and Market Transparency," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(4), pages 1842-1868.
    22. Sendhil Mullainathan & Joshua Schwartzstein & Andrei Shleifer, 2008. "Coarse Thinking and Persuasion," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(2), pages 577-619.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality
    • L82 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Entertainment; Media

    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:aea:aejmic:v:9:y:2017:i:1:p:242-74. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.