Reputational Conservatism in Expert Advice

Georgy Lukyanov and Anna Vlasova
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Georgy Lukyanov: TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - Comue de Toulouse - Communauté d'universités et établissements de Toulouse - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement
Anna Vlasova: CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - ENSAI - Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Analyse de l'Information [Bruz] - Groupe ENSAE-ENSAI - Groupe des Écoles Nationales d'Économie et Statistique - X - École polytechnique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - ENSAE Paris - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique - Groupe ENSAE-ENSAI - Groupe des Écoles Nationales d'Économie et Statistique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: We develop a tractable career–concerns model of expert recommendations with a continuous private signal. In equilibrium, advice obeys a cutoff rule: the expert recommends the risky option if and only if the signal exceeds a threshold. Under a mild relative–diagnosticity condition, the threshold is (weakly) increasing in reputation, yielding reputational conservatism. Signal informativeness and success priors lower the cutoff, while stronger career concerns raise it. A success–contingent bonus implements any target experimentation rate via a one–to–one mapping, providing an implementable design lever.

Keywords: Career concerns; Expert advice; Reputational incentives; Information design; Experimentation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-02-16
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-05512142v1
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-05512142

DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2509.04036

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