Can a bonus overcome moral hazard? Experimental evidence from markets for expert services

B-Tier
Journal: Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
Year: 2018
Volume: 154
Issue: C
Pages: 362-378

Score contribution per author:

1.005 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

Interactions between players with private information and opposed interests are often prone to bad advice and inefficient outcomes, e.g. markets for financial or health care services. In a deception game we investigate experimentally which factors could improve advice quality. Besides advisor competition and identifiability, we add the possibility for clients to make a voluntary payment, a bonus, after observing advice quality. While the combination of competition and reputation concerns achieves the highest rate of truthful advice, we observe a similar effect, when the bonus is combined with one of them. Thus, our results suggest that a voluntary component can act as a substitute for either competition or reputation, decreasing moral hazard.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:jeborg:v:154:y:2018:i:c:p:362-378
Journal Field
Theory
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-24