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The basic economic force is the specialization of tasks and the division of work. As a consequence, the economic actors as firms, institutions and people exchange goods, services and tasks. In a free society, a transaction takes place if there are gains from trade, and both involved actors expect an improvement of their utility. Suppliers sell their goods and services as long as the price is higher than the costs. Consumers will buy the goods, as long as the expected utility is higher than the price. In general, consumers compare between goods with different prices and attributes. Firms employ workers with different skills at different wages. Information about the products’ prices and costs may be more ore less easy to get, at least for the supplier. The detection of the product’s attributes may be more difficult. Especially, at the time of the transaction, some of the attributes of the product or task are not exactly known by one or both of the actors. This lack of information of the product quality and attributes influence the transaction behavior and the market structure. However, transactions may take place also in such situations. What is the basis of decision making used by the actors in such transaction situations? How are additional information sources like a signal or a third opinion introduced in the actors’ decision problem? What are the supplier’s incentives and possibilities to reveal the information? This issues on consumer behavior and information asymmetries are introduced in Nelson (1970) and Darby and Karni (1973). Based on these pathbreaking articles, Andersen and Philipsen (1998) outline the goods characteristics in three categories: Goods with search characteristics feature low pre-buying costs of quality detection. Hence, the buyer can learn by comparing and inspecting the goods’ attributes before buying. Examples for such goods are clothes, footwear, furniture, cameras, and food Goods with experience characteristics feature high pre-buying costs of quality detection. Hence, the buyer learns the product’s attributes after buying and consuming. The post-buying costs of quality detection are low for such goods. This information can be used for further consumption of the product. Examples for such goods are jobs, hotels, newspapers, music records and movies, wine, restaurants, food •|Goods with credence characteristics feature high pre-buying costs and high post-buying costs of quality detection. The utility cannot be exactly determined even after consumption. Examples for such goods are health services, legal advices, and child day care, religious and spiritual guidance

In 1998 fourteen leading European soccer clubs established a loose coalition known as the G-14 after Media Partners, an Italian Media Company, promoted the idea to form an independent and hermetic European league following the American model. Today G-14 is organized as an association of 18 top clubs. Backed by the bargaining power that stems from the treat to form an independent league, G-14 decided in October 2003 to approach FIFA and UEFA and demand for a change of the traditional practice to release players to association games without compensation^1. After FIFA President Sepp Blatter made clear in December 2003 that FIFA would not discuss the compensation issue with the clubs’ lobby group^2 the conflict escalated. In April 2004 G-14 triggered an investigation into the world governing body of soccer by Switzerland’s competition commission. G-14 accused the Zurich-based FIFA of breaching Switzerland’s antitrust laws. The commission is now investigating if FIFA abuses its dominant position by nominating players to compete in competitions like the World Cup without demanding permission from the clubs. In addition to this, G-14 has announced further legal moves against FIFA and UEFA, like for example the intention to file a complaint with the European Court of Justice.^3

Celibacy directly concerns only a small fraction of the people in the Catholic Church, the priests. However, it seems to enrage many people, even if they are not Catholic priests themselves or even if they are not involved at all with the Catholic Church. The arguments brought forward against celibacy are manifold. The more moderate critics of the celibate urge the Catholic Church to hire high quality human resources as priests. Living celibate is not very attractive for a wide range of individuals since it imposes significant personal opportunity costs. Additionally, it hinders the Catholic Church from adapting its internal structure to the changed social and moral standards of modern societies. As a result, the church may be increasingly unattractive for a wide range of believers with a modern respectively liberal orientation. The more fierce critics directly link celibacy to priest misconduct. Recent cases of paedophilia in U.S. catholic dioceses fuelled this second discussion and gave rise to a new wave of questions about priest celibacy. Despite the facts that there seems to be no scientific evidence whatsoever that paedophilia is related to celibacy itself and that the likelihood of paedophilia is lower among Catholic priests than among married men 1 , there is a widely-spread belief in society that priestly celibacy contributed to the abuse problem. 2 Hence, the application of celibacy has severe drawbacks for the Catholic Church, while potential benefits are not obvious

The quality of products or services with experience goods characteristics can often not be inspected before buying. Hence, measuring the quality before consuming is difficult or impossible for “normal” individuals. The producers cannot be identified as high or low quality producers before selling the product. As a result, consumers build expectations about the product’s quality that are lower than the high quality and higher than the low quality product. There is only one price in the market for all quality types of goods. This gives rise to the famous “lemons” problem, where the suppliers of low quality goods are free riding on the existence of high quality goods in the market

It is the purpose of this book to shed light on the behaviour of economic actors in case of transacting a product, service or task with experience or credence characteristics. The considered problems discuss the contractual relationship and market interactions between (i) a firm and a worker, (ii) a service supplier and many service consumers and, (iii) few product suppliers and many product consumers