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A Shirking Theory of Referrals

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  • Damien S Eldridge

    (School of Economics, La Trobe University)

Abstract

Many service industries, including the medical and legal professions in some countries, display a gated structure. Rather than approaching a final producer directly, a consumer will first seek a referral from an intermediary. In this paper, we provide one possible explanation for such an industry structure. If the outcome of a transaction depends on producer effort, which is unobservable and unverifiable, then the market may fail to generate a Pareto optimal outcome. This is the standard moral hazard problem. If consumers had a long-run relationship with producers, this type of market failure might be avoided. However, in some industries, consumers will only have a short-run relationship with producers. A gate-keeping intermediary may provide an opportunity for reputation effects to apply in such a setting. By aggregating many potential consumers, gate keeping intermediaries can create an artificial long-run relationship between a consumer and a producer. This long-run relationship reduces the incidence of shirking on the part of the producer.

Suggested Citation

  • Damien S Eldridge, 2007. "A Shirking Theory of Referrals," Working Papers 2007.05, School of Economics, La Trobe University.
    • Handle: RePEc:trb:wpaper:2007.05
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    Cited by:

    1. Damien S Eldridge, 2007. "A Shirking Theory of Referrals," Working Papers 2007.05, School of Economics, La Trobe University.
    2. Damien S Eldridge, 2007. "A Learning Theory of Referrals," Working Papers 2007.06 EDIRC Provider-In, School of Economics, La Trobe University.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • 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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