TY  - BOOK
AU  - Eldridge,Damien S.
AU  - Ryan,Chris
TI  - A shirking theory of referrals
T2  - Discussion papers
SN  - 1921377259
U1  - 362.10994 21
PY  - 2007///
CY  - Bundoora, Vic.
PB  - La Trobe University. School of Business
KW  - SERVICIOS DE SALUD
KW  - ATENCION EN SALUD
KW  - ANALISIS ECONOMETRICO
KW  - AUSTRALIA
KW  - ATENCION MEDICA
N1  - Bibliografía: p. 38-42
N2  - Many service industries, including the medical and legal professions in some countries, display a gated structure. Rather than approaching a final producer directly, a consumer will first seek a referral from an intermediary. In this paper, we provide one possible explanation for such an industry structure. If the outcome of a transaction depends on producer effort, which is unobservable and unverifiable, then the market may fail to generate a Pareto optimal outcome. This is the standard moral hazard problem. If consumers had a long-run relationship with producers, this type of market failure might be avoided. However, in some industries, consumers will only have a short-run relationship with producers. A gate-keeping intermediary may provide an opportunity for reputation effects to apply in such a setting. By aggregating many potential consumers, gate keeping intermediaries can create an artificial long-run relationship between a consumer and a producer. This long-run relationship reduces the incidence of shirking on the part of the producer
UR  - http://www.latrobe.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/130904/2007.05.pdf
ER  -