Reputation for honesty arises only when actions are recorded and observable

Evidence

While all this is true, none of it throws light on the idea of a person acquiring a reputation for honesty by his act. For this we need to discuss repeated plays of our basic game and to assume that the salesman’s behaviour (whether he has sold a reliable car or a lemon) is recorded after each transaction, so that future customers know the seller’s history. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 955

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Reputation requires recorded, observable transaction history — precisely the monitoring substrate the reader argues Saramago’s blindness destroys; forms the bridge to Hardin’s observability constraint.

Related

• Building an honesty reputation requires each act be recorded and observable by future partners (similarity 0.94)
• Reputation for honesty is built through costly investment against short-term interests (similarity 0.85)
• Reputation functions as a commodity that assures others one will honor commitments (similarity 0.84)
• Pure reputation models collapse because dishonest actors can mimic honest behavior perfectly (similarity 0.83)
• Reputation means changing beliefs, not merely incentive-compatible behavior (similarity 0.83)
• Competition among traders makes reputation equilibrium selection hard to prove formally (similarity 0.83)
• Reputation building requires sacrificing short-term gains for future returns (similarity 0.81)
• Reputation signals trust but experience substitutes for it (similarity 0.80)
• Honest behavior that reveals nothing about disposition leaves a trader’s reputation unchanged. (similarity 0.80)
• Whether a buyer transacts hinges on a threshold of perceived seller honesty (similarity 0.80)
• Reputation-building is a deliberate investment of foregone gains (similarity 0.79)
• Honest actors must spend resources to distinguish themselves from dishonest mimics (similarity 0.79)
• Reputation interpretation depends on the interpreter, not the reputation holder. (similarity 0.78)
• Trust requires repeated encounters, memory, costly honesty, and earned reputation (similarity 0.78)