TY  - JOUR
AU  - Jin,Ginger Zhe
AU  - Kato,Andrew
AU  - List,John A.
TI  - That's News to Me! Information Revelation in Professional Certification Markets
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 12390
PY  - 2006
Y2  - July 2006
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12390
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12390.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Ginger Z. Jin
University of Maryland
Department of Economics
3105 Tydings Hall
College Park, MD  20742-7211
Tel: 301/405-3484
Fax: 301/405-3542
E-Mail: jin@econ.umd.edu

Andrew Kato
University of Maryland
E-Mail: akato@umd.edu

John List
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
1126 East 59th
Chicago, IL 60637
Tel: 301/405-1288
Fax: 301/314-9091
E-Mail: jlist@uchicago.edu
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 2006-07-31
AB  - Using sportscard grading as an example, we employ field experiments to investigate empirically the informational role of professional certifiers. In the past 20 years, professional grading of sportscards has evolved in a way that provides a unique opportunity to measure the information provision of a monopolist certifier and that of subsequent entrants. Empirical results suggest three patterns: the grading certification provided by the first professional certifier offers new information to inexperienced traders but adds little information to experienced dealers. This implies that the certification may reduce the information asymmetry between informed and uninformed parties. Second, compared with the incumbent, new entrants adopt more precise signals and use finer grading cutoffs to differentiate from the incumbent. Third, our measured differentiated grading cutoffs map consistently into prevailing market prices, suggesting that the market recognizes differences across multiple grading criteria.
ER  -