Pourquoi évaluer son partenaire lors d’une transaction à la eBay ? une approche expérimentale

Several online market sites, such as eBay, have implemented reputation management mechanisms in order to improve cooperation. In this article, we aim at investigating the emergence of trust and cooperation in presence of reputation mechanism. In a series of experiments based on the trust game introduced by Berg Dickhault and McCabe (1995) , we examine different reputation systems. Our experimental design, thus, involves several treatments depending on the reputation system involved: simultaneous evaluation, sequential evaluation, evaluation with endogeneous choice in the moment of the evaluation. Our results indicate that reputation systems increase both the level of trust and the level of cooperation. However, our study also shed light on the limits of such systems. Indeed, evaluation can be used in a strategic way or in reprisal to received evaluation, that may attenuate its efficiency.