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Contribution Details

Type Working Paper
Scope Discipline-based scholarship
Title On Reputation: A Microfoundation of Contract Enforcement and Price Rigidity
Organization Unit
Authors
  • Ernst Fehr
  • Martin Brown
  • Christian Zehnder
Language
  • English
Institution University of Zurich
Series Name Working paper series / Institute for Empirical Research in Economics
Number No. 384
ISSN 1424-0459
Date 2008
Abstract Text We study the impact of reputational incentives in markets characterized by moral hazard problems. Social preferences have been shown to enhance contract enforcement in these markets, while at the same time generating considerable wage and price rigidity. Reputation powerfully amplifies the positive effects of social preferences on contract enforcement by increasing contract efficiency substantially. This effect is, however, associated with a considerable bilateralisation of market interactions, suggesting that it may aggravate price rigidities. Surprisingly, reputation in fact weakens the wage and price rigidities arising from social preferences. Thus, in markets characterized by moral hazard, reputational incentives unambiguously increase mutually beneficial exchanges, reduce rents, and render markets more responsive to supply and demand shocks.
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