The Economic Logic of Creative Reputations

Strange as it may seem, the institutions we looked at in the last Chapter are not directly commissioned by anyone to do their work of assessing quality. Consumers do not pay critics for their services, and are accordingly neither their customers nor their employers. Most of their financial support comes from the business community, but this is carefully concealed. They are paid through intermediaries, and their paymasters go to great lengths not to be identified with particular reviews. It is, nevertheless, they who benefit. From a legal point of view, the quality monitoring institutions are independent and autonomous, as they need to be if they are to be capable of doing their job, which requires the right to express opinions without fear or favour, in the interests of consumers. These are not the people paying them, however, so the critics are not financially accountable to them for the quality of their product, that is, for the accuracy of their recommendations. Indeed, this seems to be regarded as little more than a side-effect of their work, although critics and other assessors are accountable to themselves to the extent that they value their colleagues’ opinions and are keen to protect their own reputation. For all that, they are also under an obligation to their sponsors, which means there is clearly a potential for divided loyalties. Somehow or other this rickety vessel stays afloat, but its effectiveness is highly debatable.