Market Transparency, Adverse Selection, and Moral Hazard

We study how an improvement in market transparency affects seller exit and continuing sellers' behavior in a market setting that involves informational asymmetries. The improvement was achieved by reducing strategic bias in buyer ratings. It led to a significant increase in buyer satisfaction with seller performance, but not to an increase in seller exit. When sellers had the choice between exiting-a reduction in adverse selection-and staying but improving behavior-a reduction in moral hazard-they preferred the latter. Increasing market transparency led to better market outcomes.