The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism" is a 1970 paper by the economist George Akerlof. It discusses information asymmetry, which occurs when the seller knows more about a product than the buyer. Akerlof, Michael Spence, and Joseph Stiglitz jointly received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001 for their research related to asymmetric information. Akerlof's paper uses the market for used cars as an example of the problem of quality uncertainty. It concludes that owners of good cars will not place their cars on the used car market. This is sometimes summarized as "the bad driving out the good" in the market.Suppose we can use some number, q to index the quality of used cars, where q is uniformly distributed over the interval [0,1]. The average quality of a used car which could be supplied to the market is therefore 1/2. There are a large number of buyers looking for cars who are prepared to pay their reservation price of (3/2)q for a car that is of quality q. There are also a large number of sellers who are prepared to sell a car of quality q for the price q. If quality were observable, the price of used cars would therefore be somewhere between q and (3/2)q, and the cars would be sold and everyone would be perfectly happy. If the quality of cars is not observable by the buyers, then it seems reasonable for them to estimate the quality of a car offered to market using the average quality of all cars.
Based on this estimation, the willingness to pay for any given car will therefore be (3/2)(q_avg), where q_avg is the average quality of all the cars. Now, assume that the equilibrium price in the market is some price, p, where p>0. At this price, all the owners of cars with quality less than p will want to offer their cars for sale. Since again, quality is uniformly distributed over the interval from 0 to this p, the average quality of the cars offered for sale at p will be worth only p/2. We know however that for an expected quality worth p/2, buyers will only be willing to pay (3/2)(p/2) = (3/4)p. Therefore we can conclude that no cars will be sold at p. Because p is any arbitrary positive price, it is shown that no cars will be sold at any positive price at all. The market for used cars collapses when there is asymmetric information.
The paper by Akerlof describes how the interaction between quality heterogeneity and asymmetric information can lead to the disappearance of a market where guarantees are indefinite. In this model, as quality is undistinguishable beforehand by the buyer (due to the asymmetry of information), incentives exist for the seller to pass off low-quality goods as higher-quality ones. The buyer, however, takes this incentive into consideration, and takes the quality of the goods to be uncertain. Only the average quality of the goods will be considered, which in turn will have the side effect that goods that are above average in terms of quality will be driven out of the market. This mechanism is repeated until a no-trade equilibrium is reached.
As a consequence of the mechanism described in this paper, markets may fail to exist altogether in certain situations involving quality uncertainty. Examples given in Akerlof's paper include the market for used cars, the dearth of formal credit markets in developing countries, and the difficulties that the elderly encounter in buying health insurance. However, not all players in a given market will follow the same rules or have the same aptitude of assessing quality. So there will always be a distinct advantage for some vendors to offer low-quality goods to the less-informed segment of a market that, on the whole, appears to be of reasonable quality and have reasonable guarantees of certainty. This is part of the basis for the idiom, buyer beware.
There is no reciprocal danger of a market for a good product collapsing in this manner when the asymmetry is in favour of the buyer that is to say, when the buyers can assess more accurately the quality of the products than the sellers. In this case, regular market forces of supply and demand will prevail, the sellers will get the highest price paid, and the trend will be to weed out products with prices in excess of their quality.
This is likely the basis for the idiom that an informed consumer is a better consumer. An example of this might be the subjective quality of fine food and wine. Individual consumers know best what they prefer to eat, and quality is almost always assessed in fine establishments by smell and taste before they pay. That is, if a customer in a fine establishment orders a lobster and the meat is not fresh, he can send the lobster back to the kitchen and refuse to pay for it. However, a definition of 'highest quality' for food eludes providers. Thus, a large variety of better quality and higher priced restaurants.
Based on this estimation, the willingness to pay for any given car will therefore be (3/2)(q_avg), where q_avg is the average quality of all the cars. Now, assume that the equilibrium price in the market is some price, p, where p>0. At this price, all the owners of cars with quality less than p will want to offer their cars for sale. Since again, quality is uniformly distributed over the interval from 0 to this p, the average quality of the cars offered for sale at p will be worth only p/2. We know however that for an expected quality worth p/2, buyers will only be willing to pay (3/2)(p/2) = (3/4)p. Therefore we can conclude that no cars will be sold at p. Because p is any arbitrary positive price, it is shown that no cars will be sold at any positive price at all. The market for used cars collapses when there is asymmetric information.
The paper by Akerlof describes how the interaction between quality heterogeneity and asymmetric information can lead to the disappearance of a market where guarantees are indefinite. In this model, as quality is undistinguishable beforehand by the buyer (due to the asymmetry of information), incentives exist for the seller to pass off low-quality goods as higher-quality ones. The buyer, however, takes this incentive into consideration, and takes the quality of the goods to be uncertain. Only the average quality of the goods will be considered, which in turn will have the side effect that goods that are above average in terms of quality will be driven out of the market. This mechanism is repeated until a no-trade equilibrium is reached.
As a consequence of the mechanism described in this paper, markets may fail to exist altogether in certain situations involving quality uncertainty. Examples given in Akerlof's paper include the market for used cars, the dearth of formal credit markets in developing countries, and the difficulties that the elderly encounter in buying health insurance. However, not all players in a given market will follow the same rules or have the same aptitude of assessing quality. So there will always be a distinct advantage for some vendors to offer low-quality goods to the less-informed segment of a market that, on the whole, appears to be of reasonable quality and have reasonable guarantees of certainty. This is part of the basis for the idiom, buyer beware.
There is no reciprocal danger of a market for a good product collapsing in this manner when the asymmetry is in favour of the buyer that is to say, when the buyers can assess more accurately the quality of the products than the sellers. In this case, regular market forces of supply and demand will prevail, the sellers will get the highest price paid, and the trend will be to weed out products with prices in excess of their quality.
This is likely the basis for the idiom that an informed consumer is a better consumer. An example of this might be the subjective quality of fine food and wine. Individual consumers know best what they prefer to eat, and quality is almost always assessed in fine establishments by smell and taste before they pay. That is, if a customer in a fine establishment orders a lobster and the meat is not fresh, he can send the lobster back to the kitchen and refuse to pay for it. However, a definition of 'highest quality' for food eludes providers. Thus, a large variety of better quality and higher priced restaurants.
No comments:
Post a Comment