In credence goods markets, experts have better information about the appropriate quality of treatment than their customers. Because experts provide both the diagnosis and the treatment, there is opportunity for fraud. We experimentally investigate how the intensity of price competition and the level of customer information about past expert behavior inuence experts' incentives to defraud their customers when experts can build up reputation. We show that the level of fraud is signicantly higher under price competition than when prices are xed, as the price decline under a competitive-price regime inhibits quality competition. More customer information does not necessarily reduce the level of fraud.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.