Rating systems measuring quality of products and services (i.e., the state of the world) are widely used to solve the asymmetric information problem in markets. Decision makers typically make binary decisions such as buy/hold/sell based on aggregated individuals' opinions presented in the form...

This paper uses data collected from eBay's website to identify why buyers fail to leave (negative) feedback in online markets. Empirical results con¯rm that the fear of retaliation may be an important motivation for buyers not to leave (negative) feedback, while the time and effort cost of...

Reputation systems that rely on feedback from traders are important institutions for helping sustain trust in markets, while feedback information is usually considered a public good. We apply both theoretical models and experiments to study how raters' feedback behavior responds to different...

This paper uses data collected from eBay's website to identify why buyers fail to leave (negative) feedback in online markets. Empirical results confirm that the fear of retaliation may be an important motivation for buyers not to leave (negative) feedback, while the time and effort costs of...

Will generous return policies in auctions benefit bidders? We investigate this issue using second-price common-value auctions. Theoretically, we find that the bidding equilibrium is unique unless returns are free, in which case there exist multiple equilibria with different implications for...

In this paper, we propose a new channel of contract design to boost efficiency. If deviating from one's own words induces a self-imposed moral burden, the optimal contracting procedure with regard to cheap talk shall assign the responsibility for installing the nonbinding promise in the contract...

We experimentally investigate a new variant of the trust/investment game that captures some key features of internet peer-to-peer (P2P) lending: the borrower specifies the amount of money required and makes a contingent promise about the value of the generally higher repayment prior to the...

In this paper we experimentally study effects of exogenous revenue shocks on long-term relationships between firms and workers. While we find that shocks have no significant effect on wages and a little effect on the duration of relationships, we observe their significant effect on effort...

Trust is an essential component of good social outcomes and effective economic performance. Reputation on the trustee's past behavior in the same role has proven to be greatly effective at raising the level of trust. In this study, we show that providing information on the trustee's past...

Theory (Du, 2008) predicts that equilibrium prices will be lower when firms' advertising conveys the price than when it does not convey the price. In the laboratory sessions, sellers make two decisions: what price to set, and whether to advertise to eliminate consumer search costs for their...