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Your Reputation Is Who You're Not, Not Who You'd Like To Be

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  • George J. Mailath
  • Larry Samuelson
Abstract
We construct a model in which a firm's reputation must be built gradually, is managed, and dissipates gradually unless appropriately maintained. Consumers purchase an experience good from a firm whose unobserved effort affects the probability distribution of consumer utilities. Consumers observe private, noisy signals (consumer utilities) of the behavior of the firm, yielding a game of imperfect private monitoring} The standard approach to reputations introduces some "good" or "Stackelberg" firms into the model, with consumers ignorant of the type of the firm they face and with ordinary firms acquiring their reputations by masquerading as Stackelberg firms. In contrast, the key ingredient of our reputation model is the continual possibility that the ordinary or "competent" firm might be replaced by a "bad" or "inept" firm who never chooses the Stackelberg action. Competent firms then acquire their reputations by convincing consumers that they are not inept. Building a reputation is an exercise in separating oneself from inept firms who one is not, rather than pooling with Stackelberg firms who one would like to be. We investigate how a firm manages such a reputation, showing, among other features, that a competent firm may not always choose the most efficient effort level to distinguish itself from an inept one.

Suggested Citation

  • George J. Mailath & Larry Samuelson, 1998. "Your Reputation Is Who You're Not, Not Who You'd Like To Be," CARESS Working Papres rep-is-sep, University of Pennsylvania Center for Analytic Research and Economics in the Social Sciences.
    • Handle: RePEc:wop:pennca:rep-is-sep
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    File URL: http://www.ssc.upenn.edu/~gmailath/wpapers/rep-is-sep.pdf
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    Cited by:

    1. George J. Mailath & Larry Samuelson, 2001. "Who Wants a Good Reputation?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 68(2), pages 415-441.
    2. Bhaskar, V. & van Damme, Eric, 2002. "Moral Hazard and Private Monitoring," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 16-39, January.
    3. Stephen Morris, 2001. "Political Correctness," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(2), pages 231-265, April.
    4. Ely, Jeffrey & Fudenberg, Drew & Levine, David K., 2008. "When is reputation bad?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 498-526, July.
    5. Villatoro, Félix, 2009. "The delegated portfolio management problem: Reputation and herding," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(11), pages 2062-2069, November.
    6. Heski Bar‐Isaac & Juan‐José Ganuza, 2008. "Recruitment, Training, and Career Concerns," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(4), pages 839-864, December.
    7. Luis Cabral & Ali Hortacsu, 2004. "The Dynamics of Seller Reputation: Theory and Evidence from eBay," NBER Working Papers 10363, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Jeffrey C. Ely & Juuso Välimäki, 2003. "Bad Reputation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 785-814.
    9. Guillermo Ordonez, 2008. "Essays on Learning and Macroeconomics," Levine's Working Paper Archive 122247000000002250, David K. Levine.
    10. Heski Bar-Isaac & Juanjo Ganuza, 2005. "Teaching to the top and searching for superstars," Working Papers 05-06, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    11. Hortacsu, Ali, 2005. "Trust and Reputation on eBay: Micro and Macro Perspectives," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt8vj7d50q, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    12. Chrysanthos Dellarocas, 2003. "The Digitization of Word of Mouth: Promise and Challenges of Online Feedback Mechanisms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(10), pages 1407-1424, October.
    13. Johannes Hörner, 2002. "Reputation and Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(3), pages 644-663, June.
    14. Harrington, Joseph E. & Zhao, Wei, 2012. "Signaling and tacit collusion in an infinitely repeated Prisoners’ Dilemma," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 277-289.
    15. Steven Tadelis, 1999. "What's in a Name? Reputation as a Tradeable Asset," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 548-563, June.
    16. Compte, Olivier, 2002. "On Sustaining Cooperation without Public Observations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 106-150, January.
    17. Guillermo Ordonez, 2005. "Don't Ask Why Things Went Wrong: Nested Reputation and Scapegoating Inefficiency," Levine's Working Paper Archive 618897000000000988, David K. Levine.
    18. Bernardita Vial, 2008. "Competitive Equilibrium and Reputation under Imperfect Public Monitoring," Documentos de Trabajo 327, Instituto de Economia. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile..

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    • C70 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - General

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