Uncovering Sophisticated Discrimination with the Help of Credence Goods Markups: Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment
Management Science · 2025 · Jonathan Hall、Rudolf Kerschbamer、Daniel Neururer、Eric Skoog
中文摘要
信任品（如维修与医疗服务）的特征在于信息较少的顾客与信息更充分的专家型卖方之间存在深刻的信息不对称。这种信息不对称为卖方的欺诈行为打开了方便之门。在一项预注册的自然田野实验中，我们在一个维度上改变卖方对服务是普通品服务还是信任品服务的感知，在第二个维度上改变顾客是少数群体成员还是多数群体成员。这使我们得以测量所诱导的信任品加价的规模，并探讨其是否与歧视存在系统性交互。我们记录了总体上存在较大的信任品加价。此外，我们发现，当商品被感知为信任品时，少数群体成员需支付可观的歧视性加价，而当其被感知为普通品时则不然。我们的结果表明，卖方实施了复杂歧视，即利用信息不对称来掩盖歧视性（欺诈性）行为。借助一项事后调查，我们为研究结果提出了一个可能的解释。
Abstract
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.