Trust and reputation in the peer-to-peer platform economy

Abstract

People are more likely to interact with another individual if they know that person has been trustworthy in the past. Reputation systems, by providing that information on past trustworthiness, thus enable trust. This dissertation studies three different mechanisms through which reputation systems affect behavior in the context of the platform economy.

The first issue that is addressed, is whether reputation systems help solve discrimination. While reputation information may on the one hand draw the attention of trustors away from the demographic characteristics of the trustee, reputation systems may reproduce existing differences in the probability to be trusted. Another question that is being answered is to what extent other types of reputation information affect the decision to place trust or not. Contrary to what previous research has focused on, reputation systems may not only convey information about the trustee’s past trustworthiness, but also about their past trustfulness and past honesty. This dissertation provides an answer to these questions by using a combination of field data (generated by users of real platforms), laboratory experiments and online experiments.