Reputation with Hidden Information

企业理论的最新发展主要致力于研究资产所有权的后果，并处理可以买卖的明确定义的有形资产。 然而，众所周知，许多公司都有无形资产，其中较重要的资产之一是公司的名称，或者更准确地说，是公司名称所传达的声誉。 经济学理论中的大多数声誉文献都集中在分析声誉在企业可以"合作"的情况下所扮演的角色（例如，与其他公司串通定价，或向消费者提供高质量商品）或"偏离"（例如，降低价格以占领市场份额，或以低成本提供低质量的商品）;公司声誉的资产方面大多被忽视。 所做的工作无法解释，例如，一个公司的声誉如何可能随着业绩而增加（或减少）价值，这在现实中是常见的。 观察到的行为也没有作用，比如公司改名，这是一种常见的做法，最近引起了一些关注。 然而，研究人员开发了一种新模型，将公司名称视为无形资产，并产生了一些有趣的结果。 第一个结果表明，在所有的均衡中，公司都会买卖名字。 第二个结果表明，最好的公司不能"独立"自己;也就是说，那些能够轻松保持声誉的公司不能在市场上出价超过不太成功的公司。 建议的研究的主要目的是概括和扩展以前的工作，试图更好地了解公司的声誉作为公司行为的激励机制和作为一个“分离”的设备，通过市场上的公司名称的作用。 新的建模方法的应用可能是有用的，如特许经营和伞品牌的现象的理解。 这一系列的研究也有可能最终对集体声誉和伙伴关系的形成有所启发。

Recent developments in the theory of the firm have been devoted mainly to investigating the consequences of asset ownership, and deal with well-defined tangible assets that can be bought and sold. It is well known, however, that many firms have intangible assets, one of the more important of which is the firm's name, or more precisely, the reputation that is conveyed by its name. Most of the reputation literature in economics theory focuses on analyzing the role played by reputation in situations where a firm can "cooperate" (e.g., collude with other firms in setting a price, or provide a high quality good to a consumer) or "deviate" (e.g., cut prices to capture market shares, or provide a low quality good at a low cost); the asset-like aspect of a firm's reputation was mostly ignored. What work had been done was unable to explain how, for instance, a firm's reputation might increase (or decrease) in value following performance, as is commonly observed in reality. Nor was there a role for observed behavior such as a firm changing its name, a common practice that has lately generated some attention. However, the researcher has developed a new model treating a firm's name as an intangible asset that has yielded some interesting results. The first result shows that firms will buy and sell names in all equilibria. The second result shows that the very best firms cannot "separate" themselves; that is, those who can easily maintain a reputation cannot outbid less successful firms in the market for names. The principle aim of the proposed research is to generalize and expand the previous work in an attempt to better understand the role of a firm's reputation both as an incentive device for firm behavior and as a "separating" device through the market for firm names. Applications of the new modeling approach are likely to be useful in understanding phenomena such as franchising and umbrella branding. It is also possible that this line of research may eventually shed some light on collective reputations and the formation of partnerships.