IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bdi/wptemi/td_.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Sorting, reputation and entry in a market for experts

Author

Listed:
  • Enrico Sette

    (Bank of Italy)

Abstract

This paper analyses the market for professional (expert) services where the experts are motivated by reputational concerns. A key feature of such markets, which is often overlooked, is that clients can have specific characteristics that affect their evaluation of the service, and (or) the likelihood the service can be provided successfully. These different characteristics can induce clients to choose between experts with different reputations. The paper shows that clients choices have an important impact on the incentives of experts to provide a high quality service. In particular, sorting of clients affects incentives through three channels: changes in the types of client who are indifferent between getting the service from experts of different reputation, changes in the information on good performance as a signal of an expert's talent, and changes in the average complexity of the service the expert provides which impacts on the marginal efficiency of effort. The paper also investigates under what conditions increased entry of experts increases their incentives to exert effort. The results of the model can be applied to examine the effects of entry into the markets for doctors, lawyers, professional consultancies.

Suggested Citation

  • Enrico Sette, 2009. "Sorting, reputation and entry in a market for experts," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 727, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    • Handle: RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/temi-discussione/2009/2009-0727/en_tema_727.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Antoine Faure‐Grimaud & Eloïc Peyrache & Lucía Quesada, 2009. "The ownership of ratings," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 40(2), pages 234-257, June.
    2. Luís Almeida Costa & Luís Vasconcelos, 2010. "Share the Fame or Share the Blame? The Reputational Implications of Partnerships," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 259-301, June.
    3. Bar-Isaac, Heski, 2005. "Imperfect competition and reputational commitment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 167-173, November.
    4. Bar-Isaac, Heski & Tadelis, Steven, 2008. "Seller Reputation," Foundations and Trends(R) in Microeconomics, now publishers, vol. 4(4), pages 273-351, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Bar-Isaac, Heski & Shapiro, Joel, 2013. "Ratings quality over the business cycle," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 62-78.
    2. Becker, Bo & Milbourn, Todd, 2011. "How did increased competition affect credit ratings?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(3), pages 493-514, September.
    3. Daniel Monte & Ideen Riahi & Nikolaus Robalino, 2019. "Collusion and turnover in experience goods markets," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 23(3), pages 91-111, December.
    4. Patrick Bolton & Xavier Freixas & Joel Shapiro, 2012. "The Credit Ratings Game," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(1), pages 85-112, February.
    5. Michelangelo Rossi, 2019. "How Does Competition Affect Reputation Concerns? Theory and Evidence from Airbnb," CESifo Working Paper Series 7972, CESifo.
    6. Alcalá, Francisco & González-Maestre, Miguel & Martínez-Pardina, Irene, 2014. "Information and quality with an increasing number of brands," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 109-117.
    7. Luisa Menapace & GianCarlo Moschini, 2012. "Quality certification by geographical indications, trademarks and firm reputation," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 39(4), pages 539-566, September.
    8. David Bardey & Denis Gromb & David Martimort & Jérôme Pouyet, 2016. "Drugs, Showrooms and Financial Products: Competition and Regulation when Sellers Provide Expert Advice," PSE Working Papers halshs-01400841, HAL.
    9. Grégory Jolivet & Bruno Jullien & Fabien Postel-Vinay, 2014. "Reputation and Pricing on the e-Market: Evidence from a Major French Platform," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03460312, HAL.
    10. Alexander E. Saak, 2017. "The Value of Delegated Quality Control," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(2), pages 309-335, June.
    11. Cremer, Jacques & Khalil, Fahad, 1992. "Gathering Information before Signing a Contract," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 566-578, June.
    12. Claudia Keser & Maximilian Späth, 2020. "The Value of Bad Ratings: An Experiment on the Impact of Distortions in Reputation Systems," CIRANO Working Papers 2020s-22, CIRANO.
    13. Alcalde, Pilar & Vial, Bernardita, 2016. "Willingness to Pay for Firm Reputation: Paying for Risk Rating in the Annuity Market," MPRA Paper 68993, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Harry Pei, 2020. "Reputation Building under Observational Learning," Papers 2006.08068, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2020.
    15. Ekmekci, Mehmet & Gossner, Olivier & Wilson, Andrea, 2012. "Impermanent types and permanent reputations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(1), pages 162-178.
    16. Martin Pollrich & Lilo Wagner, "undated". "Informational opacity and honest certication," BDPEMS Working Papers 2013001, Berlin School of Economics.
    17. Butler, Jeffrey V. & Carbone, Enrica & Conzo, Pierluigi & Spagnolo, Giancarlo, 2020. "Past performance and entry in procurement: An experimental investigation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 179-195.
    18. Jihong Lee & Qingmin Liu, 2008. "The Dynamics of Bargaining Postures: The Role of a Third Party," PIER Working Paper Archive 09-001, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    19. Jie Bai, 2016. "Melons as Lemons: Asymmetric Information, Consumer Learning and Seller Reputation," Natural Field Experiments 00540, The Field Experiments Website.
    20. Schumacher, Heiner, 2014. "Incentives through consumer learning about tastes," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 170-177.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    reputation; competition; sorting; experts; entry;
    All these keywords.

    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
    • L84 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Personal, Professional, and Business Services

    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:bdi:wptemi:td_. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bdigvit.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.