Universität zu Köln

Inderst, Roman, Khalmetski, Kiryl and Ockenfels, Axel ORCID: 0000-0003-1456-0191 (2019). Sharing Guilt: How Better Access to Information May Backfire. Manage. Sci., 65 (7). S. 3322 - 3337. CATONSVILLE: INFORMS. ISSN 1526-5501

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Abstract

We study strategic communication between a customer and an advisor who is privately informed about the most suitable choice for the customer but whose preferences are misaligned with the customer's preferences. The advisor sends a message to the customer who, in turn, can secure herself from bad advice by acquiring costly information on her own. In our experiments, we find that making the customer's information acquisition less costly leads to less prosocial behavior of the advisor. This can be explained by a model of shared guilt, which predicts a shift in causal attribution of guilt from the advisor to the customer if the latter could have avoided her ex post disappointment. We conclude that providing better access to information through, for example, consumer protection regulation or digital information aggregation and dissemination, may have unintended negative consequences on peoples' willingness to take responsibility for each other.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Inderst, Roman UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Khalmetski, Kiryl UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Ockenfels, Axel UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0003-1456-0191 UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-136258
DOI:	10.1287/mnsc.2018.3101
Journal or Publication Title:	Manage. Sci.
Volume:	65
Number:	7
Page Range:	S. 3322 - 3337
Date:	2019
Publisher:	INFORMS
Place of Publication:	CATONSVILLE
ISSN:	1526-5501
Language:	English
Faculty:	Faculty of Management, Economy and Social Sciences
Divisions:	Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences > Economics > Macroeconomic, Financial and Economic Policy > Professur für Economics, Design and Behavior Center of Excellence C-SEB
Subjects:	Economics
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language DELEGATION; PROMISES; BELIEFS; BLAME; RESPONSIBILITY; RECIPROCITY; COMPETITION; AVERSION; MARKETS; OPTIONS Multiple languages Management; Operations Research & Management Science Multiple languages
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/13625