TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Beck, Adrian
AU  - Kerschbamer, Rudolf
AU  - Qiu, Jianying
AU  - Sutter, Matthias
        TI  - Guilt from Promise-Breaking and Trust in Markets for Expert Services: Theory and Experiment
        PY  - 2010/Mar/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 4827
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp4827
        AB  - 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.
        KW  - reciprocity
KW  - experts
KW  - promises
KW  - guilt
KW  - trust
KW  - credence goods
        ER  -