That's News to Me! Information Revelation in Professional Certification Markets

An earlier draft of the paper was distributed under the title "Evolution of Professional Certification Markets: Evidence from Field Experiments." We would like to thank the University of Maryland for providing funds to support this research and to three sportscard dealers who kindly participated in one of the field experiments. Gary Biglaiser, Rachel Croson, Glenn Harrison, Liesl Koch, Marc Nerlove, Tigran Melkonyan, Michael Riordan, Kyle Bagwell, Christopher Mayer, Raymond Fisman, Raphael Thomadson, Luis Cabral, John Rust, Dan Vincent, and Larry Ausubel provided useful remarks and discussion on an earlier version of this paper. Seminar participants at the University of Maryland, Columbia University, the ASSA meetings in San Diego, and the NBER Summer Institute also provided comments that helped shape the study. Suggestions from Editor David Reiley and three anonymous referees are greatly appreciated. Andrew Kato wrote this article in his personal capacity. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. government, or the National Bureau of Economic Research. Any errors remain our own.

• July 25, 2006