%0 Report
        %A Beck, Adrian
%A Kerschbamer, Rudolf
%A Qiu, Jianying
%A Sutter, Matthias
        %T Guilt from Promise-Breaking and Trust in Markets for Expert Services: Theory and Experiment
        %D 2010
        %8 2010 Mar
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 4827
        %U https://www.iza.org/publications/dp4827
        %X We examine the influence of guilt and trust on the performance of credence goods markets. An expert can make a promise to a consumer first, whereupon the consumer can express her trust by paying an interaction price before the expert’s provision and charging decisions. We argue that the expert’s promise induces a commitment that triggers guilt if the promise is broken, and guilt is exacerbated by higher interaction prices. An experiment qualitatively confirms our predictions: (1) most experts make the predicted promise; (2) proper promises induce consumer-friendly behavior; and (3) higher interaction prices increase the commitment value of proper promises.
        %K reciprocity
%K experts
%K promises
%K guilt
%K trust
%K credence goods