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Beyond A-level · 8 of 14

Adverse selection and the market for lemons

Explain how hidden quality can shrink or destroy a market

The seller of a used car knows its faults and the buyer does not

A-level calls this asymmetric information and stops at "the market fails". George Akerlof showed how it fails. A buyer can read reviews and pay a mechanic, and still cannot be sure the car is not a lemon, a car with hidden faults. The seller is likely to know more about its problems and has an incentive to hide them, because the more problems the seller discloses, the lower the price the car will fetch. So buyers cannot tell a good car from a bad one, and they price every car with that doubt in mind.

Predict first

Half the used cars for sale are good and half are lemons, and buyers cannot tell which is which. What happens to the good cars?