With credence goods consumers cannot judge the quality they receive compared to the quality they need. The needed quality can only be observed by an expert seller who may exploit the information asymmetry by cheating. In recent years various contributions have analyzed the credence goods problem...

This article studies the use of different distribution channels as an instrument of price discrimination in credence goods markets. In credence goods markets, where consumers do not know which quality of the good or service they need, price discrimination proceeds along the dimension of quality...

Most of us need the services of an expert when our apartment's heating or our washing machine breaks down, or when our car starts to make strange noises. And for most of us commissioning an expert to solve the problem causes concern. This concern does not disappear even after repair and payment...

Credence goods markets are characterized by pronounced informational asymmetries between consumers and expert sellers. As a consequence, consumers are often exploited and market efficiency is threatened. However, in the digital age, it has become easy and cheap for consumers to self-diagnose...

We examine the influence of guilt and trust on the performance of credence goods markets. An expert can make a promise to a consumer first, whereupon the consumer can express her trust by paying an interaction price before the expert's provision and charging decisions. We argue that the expert's...

Empirical literature on moral hazard focuses exclusively on the direct impact of asymmetric information on market outcomes, thus ignoring possible repercussions. We present a field experiment in which we consider a phenomenon that we call second-degree moral hazard – the tendency of the supply...