The Market for Reputations as an Incentive Mechanism
研究企业声誉市场如何影响企业主在生命周期中的努力激励，发现年轻和年长代理人的激励在数量上相等，即激励与年龄无关，但良好声誉无法有效筛选高能力代理人，且客户观察到声誉交易可能降低社会福利。
Reputational career concerns provide incentives for short-lived agents to work hard, but it is well known that these incentives disappear as an agent reaches retirement. This paper investigates the effects of a market for firm reputations on the life cycle incentives of firm owners to exert effort. A dynamic general equilibrium model with moral hazard and adverse selection generates two main results. First, incentives of young and old agents are quantitatively equal, implying that incentives are "ageless" with a market for reputations. Second, good reputations cannot act as effective sorting devices: in equilibrium, more able agents cannot outbid lesser ones in the market for good reputations. In addition, welfare analysis shows that social surplus can fall if clients observe trade in firm reputations.