American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Reputation and Competition
American Economic Review
vol. 92,
no. 3, June 2002
(pp. 644–663)
Abstract
This paper shows how competition generates reputation-building behavior in repeated interactions when the product quality observed by consumers is a noisy signal of firms' effort level. There are two types of firms and "good" firms try to distinguish themselves from "bad" firms. Although consumers get convinced that firms which are repeatedly successful in providing high quality are good firms, competition endogenously generates the outside option inducing disappointed consumers to leave firms. This threat of exit induces good firms to choose high effort, allowing good reputations to be valuable, but its uncompromising execution forces good firms out of the market. (JEL C7, D8)Citation
Hörner, Johannes. 2002. "Reputation and Competition ." American Economic Review 92 (3): 644–663. DOI: 10.1257/00028280260136444JEL Classification
- D83 Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief
- L11 Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
- L15 Information and Product Quality; Standardization and Compatibility