UTFacultiesEEMCSDisciplines & departmentsMORResearch Talk: Hey, what did you expect? Confirmation bias in markets for experts services

Research Talk: Hey, what did you expect? Confirmation bias in markets for experts services Michela Chessa (Université Côte d’Azur)

Abstract

Consumers have expectations about the quality of goods or services they should receive from an expert. In a credence goods market, provision of credence goods by an expert seems to be strongly affected by a priori consumers’ beliefs. One of the explanations for these beliefs may have its origin in the so-called confirmation bias. In this paper, we introduce a two-player dynamic psychological game in which we investigate the role of a consumer’s confirmation bias on an expert's decision. In our specification, we let the expert feel disappointed when the consumer receives a different quality from the one s/he expected. Overall, and as expected, our results suggest that experts with a high level of sensitivity are keen to follow consumers’ beliefs and provide them the quality they expected. This can lead to an increase in market (in)efficiency.