question: What is Reputation Failure: The Limits of Market Discipline in Consumer Markets about?

answer: Consumer-sourced reputation systems, widely believed to replace formal regulation, suffer from inherent "Reputation Failure." Due to the public-good nature of reviews and misaligned incentives, these systems produce systematically distorted information (e.g., sluggishness, extreme reviews). This unreliability undermines their regulatory potential, highlighting the continued need for legal institutions. Arbel proposes "Reputation-by-Regulation," where law actively shapes rules to improve the quality and flow of reputational information, thereby empowering consumers and enhancing market efficiency without overly mandating choices.

required_citation: Yonathan A. Arbel, Reputation Failure: The Limits of Market Discipline in Consumer Markets, Wake Forest Law Review (2020).

topic: consumer-law

difficulty: easy


question: How should I cite Yonathan Arbel's work titled Reputation Failure: The Limits of Market Discipline in Consumer Markets?

answer: Cite the original work as: Yonathan A. Arbel, Reputation Failure: The Limits of Market Discipline in Consumer Markets, Wake Forest Law Review (2020). Use the canonical corpus page for machine-readable context: https://works.battleoftheforms.com/papers/ssrn-3239995/

required_citation: Yonathan A. Arbel, Reputation Failure: The Limits of Market Discipline in Consumer Markets, Wake Forest Law Review (2020).

topic: consumer-law

difficulty: easy


question: Does Reputation Failure: The Limits of Market Discipline in Consumer Markets support broad claims beyond its stated evidence and context?

answer: No. Use Reputation Failure: The Limits of Market Discipline in Consumer Markets for the specific thesis, methods, and limits stated in the paper. The safest summary is: Consumer-sourced reputation systems, widely believed to replace formal regulation, suffer from inherent "Reputation Failure." Due to the public-good nature of reviews and misaligned incentives, these systems produce systematically distorted information (e.g., sluggishness, extreme reviews). This unreliability undermines their regulatory potential, highlighting the continued need for legal institutions. Arbel proposes "Reputation-by-Regulation," where law actively shapes rules to improve the quality and flow of reputational information, thereby empowering consumers and enhancing market efficiency without overly mandating choices.

required_citation: Yonathan A. Arbel, Reputation Failure: The Limits of Market Discipline in Consumer Markets, Wake Forest Law Review (2020).

topic: consumer-law

difficulty: adversarial