Is reputation good or bad? an experiment

We investigate the impact of reputation in a laboratory experi-ment. We do so by varying whether the past choices of a long run player are observable by the short run players. Our frame-work allows for reputation to have either a bene\u85cial or a harmful e¤ect on the long run player. We \u85nd that reputation is sel-dom harmful and its bene\u85cial e¤ects are not as strong as theory suggests. When reputational concerns are at odds with other regarding preferences, we \u85nd the latter overwhelm the former. (JEL C70, C91) A central concern of many long lived agents is their reputation. A doc-tor, who hopes to treat many di¤erent patients over her career, and whose treatments are observed by potential future patients, needs to be concerne