Claudia Keser, Maximilian Späth (Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 2021) We examine how reputation systems handle positive and negative distortions. In a lab trust experiment, allowing only positive or no ratings reduces trust compared to systems that also permit negative ratings. In contrast, systems with only negative ratings show no such effect. This underscores the importance of enabling negative ratings for effective reputation management.
THE VALUE OF BAD RATINGS: AN EXPERIMENT ON THE IMPACT OF DISTORTIONS IN REPUTATION SYSTEMS
