We present a natural field experiment designed to examine the extent to which priming can influence the behaviour of sellers in a real world market for credence goods. We employed 40 testers to take 600 taxi journeys in and around Vienna, Austria. Using a between-subject design we vary the...

Credence goods markets with their asymmetric information between buyers and sellers are prone to large inefficiencies. In theory, poorly informed consumers can protect themselves from maltreatment through sellers by asking for second opinions from other sellers. Yet, empirical evidence whether...

We review the literature on credence goods since Dulleck and Kerschbamer (Journal of Economic Literature 44(1), 5-42, 2006). We consider various markets for credence goods and briefly discuss evidence on the extent of fraud. We then review theoretical and empirical contributions on the...

We study the role of reciprocity in markets for credence goods where expert-sellers have more information about the severity of a problem faced by a consumer. We employ a standard experimental credence goods market to introduce the possibility for consumers to gift expert-sellers before they...

When experts have superior information on their customers' needs and appropriate treatment/repair/advice is a credence good, there are obvious incentives for opportunistic behavior. What compounds this is that experts regularly make treatment recommendations and price offers only after consumers...

We present the results of a pre-registered natural field experiment designed to uncover a sophisticated form of discrimination against an immigrant minority in a market for credence goods. For this purpose, we introduce two markups: (i) the credence goods markup defined as the difference between...

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...

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...

Status and reputation concerns are conjectured to be important especially in markets with information asymmetries between buyers and sellers, such as in credence goods markets. To investigate the effects of status and reputation on reciprocal behavior of sales personnel in a financial credence...

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...

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...

Credence goods markets with their asymmetric information between buyers and sellers are prone to large inefficiencies. In theory, poorly informed consumers can protect themselves from maltreatment through sellers by asking for second opinions from other sellers. Yet, empirical evidence whether...

We study a credence goods problem - that is, a moral hazard problem with non-contractible outcome - where altruistic experts (the agents) care both about their income and the utility of consumers (the principals). Experts' preferences over income and their consumers' utility are convex, such...

Credence goods markets with their asymmetric information between buyers and sellers are prone to large inefficiencies. In theory, poorly informed consumers can protect themselves from maltreatment through sellers by asking for second opinions from other sellers. Yet, empirical evidence whether...

Credence goods markets - like for health care or repair services - with their informational asymmetries between sellers and customers are prone to fraudulent behavior of sellers and resulting market inefficiencies. We present the first model that considers both diagnostic uncertainty of sellers...

Credence goods markets – like for health care or repair services – with their informational asymmetries between sellers and customers are prone to fraudulent behavior of sellers and resulting market inefficiencies. We present the first model that considers both diagnostic uncertainty of...

Credence goods markets – like for health care or repair services – with their informational asymmetries between sellers and customers are prone to fraudulent behavior of sellers and resulting market inefficiencies. We present the first model that considers both diagnostic uncertainty of...

Credence goods markets - like health care or repair services - with their informational asymmetries between expert sellers and uninformed customers are prone to fraudulent behavior of sellers and resulting market inefficiencies. Only little is known so far about how diagnostic uncertainty of...

This paper investigates how consumers knowledge of the EC list (reg. (EU) 432/2012) can affect their understanding of health claims (HC). Despite the existence of a rigorous regulation on the communication of health benefits attributed to functional foods (reg. (EC) 1924/2006), there are still...

Credence goods markets with their asymmetric information between buyers and sellers are prone to large inefficiencies. In theory, poorly informed consumers can protect themselves from maltreatment through sellers by asking for second opinions from other sellers. Yet, empirical evidence whether...

In credence goods markets, experts have better information about the appropriate quality of treatment than their customers. Experts may exploit their informational advantage by defrauding customers. Market institutions have been shown theoretically to be effective in mitigating fraudulent expert...

Credence goods markets with their asymmetric information between buyers and sellers are prone to large inefficiencies. In theory, poorly informed consumers can protect themselves from maltreatment through sellers by asking for second opinions from other sellers. Yet, empirical evidence whether...

We analyze the impact of records of denied and withdrawn customer complaints on job separation in a dataset based on FINRA's Broker-Check database with more than 1 mio. financial advisers. Compared to misconduct that actually leads to a conviction of the adviser, denied and withdrawn complaints...

Credence goods markets – like for health care or repair services – with their informational asymmetries between sellers and customers are prone to fraudulent behavior of sellers and resulting market inefficiencies. We present the first model that considers both diagnostic uncertainty of...

Credence goods markets - like for health care or repair services - with their informational asymmetries between sellers and customers are prone to fraudulent behavior of sellers and resulting market inefficiencies. We present the first model that considers both diagnostic uncertainty of sellers...

Credence goods markets - like for health care or repair services - with their informational asymmetries between sellers and customers are prone to fraudulent behavior of sellers and resulting market inefficiencies. We present the first model that considers both diagnostic uncertainty of sellers...

This paper investigates the impact of monitoring institutions on market outcomes in health care. Health care markets are characterized by asymmetric information. Physicians have an information advantage over patients with respect to the appropriate treatment for the patient and may exploit this...

Credence goods markets with their asymmetric information between buyers and sellers are prone to large inefficiencies. In theory, poorly informed consumers can protect themselves from maltreatment through sellers by asking for second opinions from other sellers. Yet, empirical evidence whether...

Credence goods markets with their asymmetric information between buyers and sellers are prone to large inefficiencies. In theory, poorly informed consumers can protect themselves from maltreatment through sellers by asking for second opinions from other sellers. Yet, empirical evidence whether...

Credence goods markets – like for health care or repair services – with their informational asymmetries between sellers and customers are prone to fraudulent behavior of sellers and resulting market inefficiencies. We present the first model that considers both diagnostic uncertainty of...

Markets for credence goods are classified by experts alone being able to identify consumers' problems and determine appropriate services for solution. Examining a market where experts have to invest in costly diagnosis to correctly identify problems and consumers being able to visit multiple...

We investigate a market in which experts have a moral hazard problem because they need to invest in costly but unobservable effort to identify consumer problems. Experts have either high or low qualification and can invest either high or low effort in their diagnosis. High skilled experts are...

This paper analyzes the optimal contract for a consumer to procure a credence good from an expert when (i) the expert might misrepresent his private information about the consumer’s need, (ii) the expert might not choose the requested service since his choice of treatment is non-observable,...

Moral hazard in expert diagnoses is more complicated in credence goods markets because ex-post verification of service optimality is usually not possible. We provide an experimental framework to investigate expert and consumer behavior as well as market efficiency in a setting in which experts...

The present book adds to the broad field of investigations concerning what affects and determines human cooperation. It provides new insights into internal and external factors that influence such decisions. Rather than presenting a closed and universal examination, this book should be seen as...

Credence goods markets, such as those for car repairs and medical treatments, are generally characterized by an ex-ante and ex-post information asymmetry between the uninformed buyer and the informed seller. Previous literature demonstrates that efficiency and fraud in a monopolist credence...

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...

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 present the results of a pre-registered natural field experiment designed to uncover a sophisticated form of discrimination against an immigrant minority in a market for credence goods. For this purpose, we introduce two markups: (i) the credence goods markup defined as the difference between...

Imperfect information is widely acknowledged to hamper the adoption of energy efficient technologies. In this paper, we study supply-side implications of the associated incentive structure. We build on existing evidence suggesting that energy efficiency owns a credence component, whereby the...

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...

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...

Imperfect information is widely acknowledged to hamper the adoption of energy efficient technologies. In this paper, we study supply-side implications of the associated incentive structure. We build on existing evidence suggesting that energy efficiency owns a credence component, whereby the...

Credence goods markets, such as those for car repairs and medical treatments, are generally characterized by an ex-ante and ex-post information asymmetry between the uninformed buyer and the informed seller. Previous literature demonstrates that efficiency and fraud in a monopolist credence...