[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wrk/warwec/990.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Customers' Complaints and Quality Regulation

Author

Listed:
  • Nicollier, Luciana A.

    (Department of Economics, University of Warwick)

Abstract
By studying a monopoly investment decision, this paper considers the informativeness of customers complaints in contexts characterised by the absence of direct benefits and free riding incentives. Neither the consumer nor the regulator observe the firm's investment, they only observe a realisation of quality that is related to investment in a first order stochastically dominance sense. After observing quality, consumers decide whether to complain based on the difference between the realised quality and a reference point defined by their rational expectations. If a high proportion of consumers complain, the regulator punishes the firm. The paper shows that the absence of a reference point results either in no complaints in equilibrium or in the proportion of complaints being independent of the realised level of quality. The main result is that complaints are not always informative about the level of quality being delivered by the firm. Indeed, a firm might be punished despite of investment levels being high if consumers expected high quality or, on the contrary, not being punished when investing is low if consumers expected low quality. Furthermore, this lack of informativeness can be worsened by a repeated interaction between the firm and the consumers. JEL classification: L12 ; L15 ; D42

Suggested Citation

  • Nicollier, Luciana A., 2012. "Customers' Complaints and Quality Regulation," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 990, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:wrk:warwec:990
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/workingpapers/2012/twerp_990.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Waterson, Michael & Doyle, Chris, 2010. "Your call: eBay and demand for the iPhone 4," Economic Research Papers 270777, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    2. Botond Kőszegi & Matthew Rabin, 2006. "A Model of Reference-Dependent Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1133-1165.
    3. Battigalli, Pierpaolo & Dufwenberg, Martin, 2009. "Dynamic psychological games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(1), pages 1-35, January.
    4. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Jonathan A. Parker, 2005. "Optimal Expectations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1092-1118, September.
    5. Peter C. Reiss & Matthew W. White, 2008. "What changes energy consumption? Prices and public pressures," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(3), pages 636-663, September.
    6. Paul Resnick & Richard Zeckhauser & John Swanson & Kate Lockwood, 2006. "The value of reputation on eBay: A controlled experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 9(2), pages 79-101, June.
    7. Michael Waterson & Chris Doyle, 2012. "Your Call: eBay and Demand for the iPhone 4☆," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(1), pages 141-152, February.
    8. Mussa, Michael & Rosen, Sherwin, 1978. "Monopoly and product quality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 301-317, August.
    9. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    10. Daniel Houser & John Wooders, 2006. "Reputation in Auctions: Theory, and Evidence from eBay," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(2), pages 353-369, June.
    11. Silke J. Forbes, 2008. "The Effect Of Service Quality And Expectations On Customer Complaints," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(1), pages 190-213, March.
    12. Jean-Jacques Laffont & Jean Tirole, 1993. "A Theory of Incentives in Procurement and Regulation," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121743, April.
    13. David Sappington, 2005. "Regulating Service Quality: A Survey," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 123-154, November.
    14. Stephen Coate & Michael Conlin, 2004. "A Group Rule–Utilitarian Approach to Voter Turnout: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1476-1504, December.
    15. A. Michael Spence, 1975. "Monopoly, Quality, and Regulation," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 6(2), pages 417-429, Autumn.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nicollier, Luciana A., 2012. "Customers’ Complaints and Quality Regulation," Economic Research Papers 270636, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    2. Armstrong, Mark & Sappington, David E.M., 2007. "Recent Developments in the Theory of Regulation," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: Mark Armstrong & Robert Porter (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 27, pages 1557-1700, Elsevier.
    3. Vincenzo Atella & Jay Bhattacharya & Lorenzo Carbonari, 2008. "Pharmaceutical Industry, Drug Quality and Regulation: Evidence from US and Italy," NBER Working Papers 14567, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Gesche, Tobias, 2018. "Reference Price Shifts and Customer Antagonism: Evidence from Reviews for Online Auctions," VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy 181650, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    5. Cellini, Roberto & Siciliani, Luigi & Straume, Odd Rune, 2018. "A dynamic model of quality competition with endogenous prices," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 190-206.
    6. Nepal, Rabindra & Jamasb, Tooraj, 2015. "Incentive regulation and utility benchmarking for electricity network security," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 117-127.
    7. Hans Zenger, 2006. "The Optimal Regulation of Product Quality under Monopoly," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 12(13), pages 1-4.
    8. Moszoro Marian W., 2016. "Coasean Quality of Regulated Goods," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 16(4), pages 1-13, October.
    9. Gerlach, Heiko & Zheng, Xuemei, 2018. "Preferences for green electricity, investment and regulatory incentives," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 430-441.
    10. Pierre Fleckinger, 2007. "Collective Reputation and Market Structure: Regulating the Quality vs Quantity Trade-of," Working Papers hal-00243080, HAL.
    11. Hugh Sibly, 2009. "The Determinants Of The Quantity‐Quality Balance In Monopoly," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1), pages 65-79, March.
    12. Richard Meade, 2015. "Incentives, Efficiency and Quality in Regulated Monopolies under Customer Ownership," Working Papers 2015-05, Auckland University of Technology, Department of Economics.
    13. Macera, Rosario, 2014. "Dynamic beliefs," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 1-18.
    14. Crawford, Gregory S & Shum, Matthew, 2007. "Monopoly Quality Degradation and Regulation in Cable Television," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 50(1), pages 181-219, February.
    15. Tsuyoshi Toshimitsu, 2007. "A Note on Quality Choice, Monopoly, and Network Externality," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 7(2), pages 131-142, June.
    16. Edoardo Grillo, 2013. "Reference Dependence, Risky Projects and Credible Information Transmission," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 331, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    17. Cesi Berardino & Iozzi Alberto & Valentini Edilio, 2012. "Regulating Unverifiable Quality by Fixed-Price Contracts," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-39, September.
    18. Rothbauer, Julia & Sieg, Gernot, 2010. "Quality standards for passenger trains: Political majorities and environmental costs," Economics Department Working Paper Series 8, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Economics Department.
    19. Marco Faravelli & Randall Walsh, 2011. "Smooth Politicians And Paternalistic Voters: A Theory Of Large Elections," Levine's Working Paper Archive 786969000000000250, David K. Levine.
    20. Ernesto Dal Bo, 2000. "Bribing Voters," Economics Series Working Papers 39, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Complaints ; Quality Regulation ; Reference Dependence;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L12 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Monopoly; Monopolization Strategies
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality
    • D42 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Monopoly

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wrk:warwec:990. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Margaret Nash (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dewaruk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.