Authors:
Angelova, Vera (TU Berlin)
Regner, Tobias (Friedrich Schiller University Jena)
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. We observe a positive effect on the rate of truthful advice when the bonus creates multiple opportunities to reciprocate, that is, when the bonus is combined with identifiability (leading to several client-advisor interactions over the course of the game) or competition (allowing one advisor to have several clients who may reciprocate within one period).
Keywords:
Asymmetric information; principal-agent; expert services; deception game; sender-receiver game; reciprocity; reputation; experiments; voluntary payment; competition
JEL-Classification:
C91; D03; D82; G20; I11