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Credence goods, such as repair and healthcare services, are characterized by profound information asymmetries between less-informed customers and better-informed expert sellers. These information asymmetries open the door for fraudulent behavior on the seller side. In a preregistered natural field experiment, we vary in one dimension the seller's perception of whether the service is an ordinary or a credence good service and in the second dimension whether the customer is a member of a minority or a member of the majority. This allows us to measure the size of the induced credence goods markup and to address the question whether it interacts systematically with discrimination. We document the existence of a large credence goods markup, on average. Moreover, we find that members of the minority pay a sizeable discriminatory markup if the good is perceived as a credence good but not if it is perceived as an ordinary good. Our results show that sellers engage in sophisticated discrimination where informational asymmetries are used to hide discriminatory (fraudulent) behavior. With the help of an ex post survey, we derive a possible explanation for our results. This paper was accepted by Maria Claire Villeval, behavioral economics and decision analysis. Funding: Financial support was provided by the Austrian Science Fund [Special Research Area Grant SFB F63 and Grants P26901 and P27912]. Supplemental Material: The online appendices and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.02666. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marketing practices like money-back guarantees (MBGs) are prevalent in many expert-service markets but are often decried as marketing gimmicks that take advantage of vulnerable and poorly informed consumers. In this research, conducted in the market for in vitro fertilization services, the authors empirically assess differences in quality of care between clinics that offer MBG programs and those that don't, to investigate whether MBG programs can serve a purpose consistent with signaling and insurance theories. The analysis is conducted on a unique longitudinal data set that includes information on clinic-level treatment, outcome statistics, clinic characteristics, and marketing practices for fertility clinics in the United States, state-level insurance mandates, competition environments, and demographic and geographic characteristics. Using an instrumental variable approach to account for the endogeneity of MBG decisions made by fertility clinics, the authors find that MBG clinics, on average, offer better treatment outcomes in terms of success rates while undertaking lower risks. The results are consistent with signaling theory predictions that market-based programs like MBGs can serve as signals of unobservable clinic quality despite the incentives for clinics to engage in opportunistic behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In markets for expert credence goods such as medical treatments and technical repairs, overtreatment is a common problem. However, when experts are free to choose treatment prices, this behavior is difficult to rationalize. We explain overtreatment in a model where consumers can seek treatment from an informed, liable expert or purchase speculative minor treatments from fringe firms, with costly search. Next to overtreatment, we show that wasteful search and the purchase of ineffective treatments may occur in equilibrium. Welfare is non-monotonic in search costs and can even be maximal when these are large. Expert competition may not mitigate market distortions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The complicated and evolving features of the business environment, the extensive use of information technology, the continuous change of laws and regulations, and the use of fair values and assets' revaluation in the capital accumulation necessitate the use of expert auditing services. Also, the strong emphasis on the quality of auditing by the professionals and legislators shows that the current audit environment faces many challenges and auditors' response to them is to increase the participation of experts in auditing activities. Considering the adoption of international accounting standards in Iran and the emphasis of these standards on fair value, expert services, and revision of auditing standard 620 (using the services of auditors), this study aims to explore auditors’ attitude about the necessity of using expert services in auditing and examine the current status of the auditing profession using expert services. Method: Data collection method was survey method, and nonparametric statistical tests of Wilcoxon, Chi-squared, and Friedman were used to analyze the data. Results: According to the survey results, auditors emphasize the need to use specialized services in the current situation, but most auditing firms do not have any guidelines or instructions for specialized services in auditing other than auditing standards. Also, the valuation experts are the most widely used experts in auditing. Additionally, legal and tax experts are other important specialties that could be used after valuation. Among the eleven groups of experts in authorized legal expertise, the real estate appraisal group has the highest priority, followed by the finance, road, construction, and surveying groups. In the current situation, auditors are more likely to hire professionals who are paid by the client. But these auditors themselves do not play a decisive role in selecting experts. Also, from the auditors' point of view, the cost is one of the main factors influencing the absorption of specialized personnel. Also, the results showed that auditors mostly use experts who are outside the audit team and hired by the management. However, auditors' attitudes toward tax and IT experts are more convinced than those of other groups of experts. Conclusion: At present, valuation experts are most widely required in auditing than other specialties. Also, costs play the principal role in using specialized services in auditing. Accordingly, the auditors' team tends to employ specialists whose fees are paid by the management. But, the auditors' team is not significantly involved in designating management specialists. Therefore, the Association of Certified Public Accountants is advised to consider the cost of using expert services separately in the regulations for determining the fee of auditing services and to include the cost of expertise in calculating the fee for auditing services.

Using stylized models, we investigate when and how expert service providers should offer their services online, and whether they should charge separate prices for face-to-face and online services or provide the online service as a free supplement. Interestingly, consumer surplus can rise when a monopolist charges different prices for face-to-face and online services, and it may drop when the monopolist starts offering the online service as a free add-on to its face-to-face service. We find that a market-wide adoption of the online channel by competing experts in a duopoly setting intensifies price competition and thereby reduces overall profits. Furthermore, the rate of adoption is highest when the online service is moderately effective, whereas one of the experts refuses to offer the service when it is highly effective. These results provide theoretical support for the viability of online expert services as well as practical guidance on pricing strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Tasked with a greater role in the coproduction of expert services, consumers often face an immense burden in coproducing service and well-being outcomes. While some prior research has explored customer work, we delineate unique aspects of expert services and articulate consumer efforts that transpire outside the dyadic service interaction. Through netnographic inquiry in a health care context, we find that coproduction efforts are job-like and require job crafting efforts. Upon this foundation, three major themes emerged: (1) consumers leverage their context expertise by adapting content expertise to their unique circumstances, (2) consumers develop and deploy strategies (hacks) through affordances in order to manage their coproduction jobs, and (3) consumers move through the expert service journey in a variety of ways that shift them toward or away from well-being outcomes. After assessing the transferability of our results by analyzing a second expert service context (financial services/debt management), we suggest implications for theory, practice, and future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • We investigate the effect of increasing the information endowment of customers in markets where experts provide both a diagnosis and the service under two alternative institutions: customers may either directly acquire information through personal research (PR) before consulting the expert or obtain a second opinion (SO) after diagnosis. • We compute the equilibrium for these institutions and study their effects empirically in a series of experiments. • We find that PR dominates both the baseline (of no access to information for customers) and SO with respect to market efficiency, and extracts greater effort from experts. • Customers exhibit a preference for PR over SO. Abstract We investigate the effect of increasing the information endowment of customers in markets where experts provide both a diagnosis and the service under two alternative institutions: customers may either directly acquire information through personal research (PR) before consulting the expert or obtain a second opinion (SO) after diagnosis. We compute the equilibrium for these institutions and study their effects empirically in a series of experiments. We find that PR dominates the baseline (of no access to information for customers) and SO with respect to market efficiency, and extracts greater effort from experts. Our results also indicate that decisions are optimal conditional on investment in information acquisition, and customers exhibit a preference for PR over SO. Finally, we find that lower information acquisition costs for customers in PR have positive effects on market efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • We study remedies against moral hazard in a repeated deception game. • We test bonuses to senders, sender competition, and sender reputation. • We find the highest rate of truthful advice with competition and reputation. • We find a similar effect when bonuses are combined with competition or reputation. • The bonus can substitute competition or reputation if one of them is unavailable. 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. While the combination of competition and reputation concerns achieves the highest rate of truthful advice, we observe a similar effect, when the bonus is combined with one of them. Thus, our results suggest that a voluntary component can act as a substitute for either competition or reputation, decreasing moral hazard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet has become a channel for experts offering their services. We investigate the optimal online channel adoption strategy of a high-quality expert with a brick-and-mortar presence in the face of potential entry by an expert with just an online presence. We find that the high-quality expert does not have the incentive to adopt the online channel unless new entry is imminent. If the incumbent high-quality expert cannot offer a sufficiently high-quality online service, the incumbent expert accommodates entry and provides only a face-to-face service. However, a satisfactory level of online quality allows the incumbent expert to deter entry and to limit what would otherwise be a more intense competition. This paper thus establishes an entry deterrence role for the adoption of the online channel in expert markets. In addition, the results partially explain the reasons behind the quick adoption of the online channel in tax preparation services and physicians' reluctance to offer online consultations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Credence goods are characterized by informational asymmetries between sellers and consumers that invite fraudulent behaviour by sellers. This article presents a natural field experiment on taxi rides in Athens, Greece, set up to measure different types of fraud and to examine the influence of passengers' presumed information and income on the extent of fraud. We find that passengers with inferior information about optimal routes are taken on significantly longer detours, while lack of information on the local tariff system increases the likelihood of manipulated bills by about fifteen percentage points. Passengers' perceived income seems to have no effect on fraud. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building long-term and close customer relationships is an ever-salient function in business-to-business organisations and, especially, in expert organisations where high levels of trust and close customer interaction are needed in the production of the services. A key account management (KAM) system, an organised way for managing key customers, can be a useful tool for this purpose. However, there are many factors to consider when implementing such a system in this context. The aim of this article is to describe the specific and challenging characteristics of KAM implementation in expert organisations. In particular, this article aims to describe the kinds of organisational capabilities required for KAM system implementation and what kind of KAM organisation is appropriate to dovetail with particular organisational characteristics. This study is based on a qualitative single-case study in an expert organisation constructing its KAM practices for the first time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability to access external expertise is crucial to small firms’ development, yet research examining the purchasing process of expert services by small firms is scarce. External expertise is defined here as knowledge or competence, that is relatively rare to the client firm, provided by an external party. Hence, external expertise includes professional business services as well as business advice. The paper reports on a qualitative study of small manufacturing firms’ behaviour in accessing external expertise. Five distinct patterns by which small firms come to use external expertise are described, demonstrating how small firms’ actions differ from the expert service purchasing process. The firms are found to acquire expert resources opportunistically and reactively as well as by calculated or routine purchasing, and by utilising informal sources of expertise. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]