Misconduct and Reputation under Imperfect Information

Misconduct-market actions that are unethical and indicative of fraud-is a significant yet poorly understood issue that underlies many economic transactions. We design a field experiment to study the impact of two-sided antimisconduct information programs, which we deploy on the local markets for mobile money ("human ATMs") in Ghana. The programs lead to a large reduction in misconduct (-21 percentage points=-72%) and, as a result, broader improvements in overall market activity, consumer welfare, and firm revenue. We show the treatment effect is due to a combination of more accurate consumer beliefs about misconduct and increased vendor reputation concerns.