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Personal research, second opinions, and the diagnostic effort of experts

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  • Agarwal, Ritu
  • Liu, Che-Wei
  • Prasad, Kislaya

Abstract

We investigate the effect of increasing the information endowment of customers in markets where experts provide both a diagnosis and the service under two alternative institutions: customers may either directly acquire information through personal research (PR) before consulting the expert or obtain a second opinion (SO) after diagnosis. We compute the equilibrium for these institutions and study their effects empirically in a series of experiments. We find that PR dominates the baseline (of no access to information for customers) and SO with respect to market efficiency, and extracts greater effort from experts. Our results also indicate that decisions are optimal conditional on investment in information acquisition, and customers exhibit a preference for PR over SO. Finally, we find that lower information acquisition costs for customers in PR have positive effects on market efficiency.

Suggested Citation

  • Agarwal, Ritu & Liu, Che-Wei & Prasad, Kislaya, 2019. "Personal research, second opinions, and the diagnostic effort of experts," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 44-61.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:158:y:2019:i:c:p:44-61
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2018.11.012
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    Cited by:

    1. Kandul, Serhiy & Lanz, Bruno & Reins, Evert, 2023. "Reciprocity and gift exchange in markets for credence goods," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 52-69.
    2. Schneider, Tim & Meub, Lukas & Bizer, Kilian, 2021. "Consumer information in a market for expert services: Experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    3. Parampreet Christopher Bindra & Rudolf Kerschbamer & Daniel Neururer & Matthias Sutter, 2020. "Reveal it or conceal it: On the value of second opinions in a low-entry-barriers credence goods market," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 004, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    4. Balafoutas, Loukas & Kerschbamer, Rudolf, 2020. "Credence goods in the literature: What the past fifteen years have taught us about fraud, incentives, and the role of institutions," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(C).
    5. Ruba Aljafari & Franck Soh & Pankaj Setia & Ritu Agarwal, 2024. "The local environment matters: Evidence from digital healthcare services for patient engagement," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 52(5), pages 1343-1365, October.
    6. Gerlach, Heiko & Li, Junqian, 2022. "Experts, trust and competition," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 552-578.
    7. Jost, Peter-J. & Reik, Steffen & Ressi, Anna, 2019. "Information in a Monopolist's Credence Good Market," VfS Annual Conference 2019 (Leipzig): 30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall - Democracy and Market Economy 203555, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    8. Byl, Jacob P. & Viscusi, W. Kip, 2021. "Experimental study of consumer responses to different sources of information about prescription drugs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 754-771.
    9. Bindra, Parampreet Christopher & Kerschbamer, Rudolf & Neururer, Daniel & Sutter, Matthias, 2021. "On the value of second opinions: A credence goods field experiment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Expert services; Information acquisition; Personal research; Second opinions; Credence goods;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets

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