Collective Reputation, Professional Regulation and Franchising

Robert Evans and Timothy Guinnane

No 1627, Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers from Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University

Abstract: Collective reputation and its associated free-rider problem have been invoked to justify state licensing of professions and to explain the incidence of franchising. We examine the conditions under which it is possible to create a Pareto-improving collective reputation among groups of heterogeneous producers. If the regulator or franchisor cannot credibly commit to high quality then a common reputation can be created only if the groups are not too different and if marginal cost is declining. High cost groups benefit most from forming a common regime.

Keywords: Quality regulation; Licensing; Collective reputation; Reputational externality; Franchising (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L43 L44 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2007-09
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d16/d1627.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found

Related works:
Working Paper: Collective Reputation, Professional Regulation and Franchising (2007)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:1627

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
Cowles Foundation, Yale University, Box 208281, New Haven, CT 06520-8281 USA
The price is None.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers from Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University Yale University, Box 208281, New Haven, CT 06520-8281 USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Brittany Ladd ().