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Can a bonus overcome moral hazard? An experiment on voluntary payments, competition, and reputation in markets for expert services

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  • Angelova, Vera
  • Regner, Tobias

Abstract

Interactions between players with private information and opposed interests are often prone to bad advice and inefficient outcomes, e.g. markets for financial or health care services. In a deception game we investigate experimentally which factors could improve advice quality. Besides advisor competition and identifiability we add the possibility for clients to make a voluntary payment, a bonus, after observing advice quality. We observe a positive effect on the rate of truthful advice when the bonus creates multiple opportunities to reciprocate, that is, when the bonus is combined with identifiabilitiy (leading to several client-advisor interactions over the course of the game) or competition (allowing one advisor to have several clients who may reciprocate within one period). Moreover, identifiability significantly increases truth-telling under competition.

Suggested Citation

  • Angelova, Vera & Regner, Tobias, 2016. "Can a bonus overcome moral hazard? An experiment on voluntary payments, competition, and reputation in markets for expert services," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2016-027, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:sfb649:sfb649dp2016-027
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    asymmetric information; principal-agent; expert services; deception; sender-receiver game; reciprocity; reputation; experiments; voluntary payment; competition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • G20 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - General
    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets

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