ECON 100B Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Downside Risk, Economic Equilibrium, Expected Loss

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Econ 100B Lecture 14 - May 29, 2018
Asymmetric Information
Introduction
Till now, we have assumed all economic agents are fully informed about the market
specifics
Know pries, income, quality, etc.
We also assumed equal level of information
However, in any markets, economic agents do not have complete information or all of
them do not have the same level of information
Examples: used car market, insurance, newly hired research assistant (labor market,
credit cards, restaurant, etc
Imperfect information or asymmetry in information can be lead to market failure
The concept was discussed by George A. Akerlof in the 1970s in relation to the used car
market
Used Car Market
Two kinds of cars: high quality and low quantity
Sellers know exact quality of the cars
Scenario 1: best case
In a market with perfect information, buyers and sellers both known the exact
quality of the car
High quality cars are worth $20,000
Low quality cars are worth $2000
And the market sells 40,000 of each
Total # of cars = 80,000
Under perfect information:
50% is the market share of high quality and 50% of low quality cars
Scenario 2: Perfect information does not exist
Sellers know the exact quality of a cars
Buyers can only identify the quantity by purchasing the good
Buyers beware! They cannot get their money back if they buy a bad car
Uncertain situation: buyers do not know the quality of the product until they
purchase
Willingness to pay:
Expected value = (.5)(20,000) + (.5)(2,000) = $11,000
People are willing to pay $11,000 for an automobile
Price buyers are willing to pay is somewhere between high and low quality cars
They perceive the cars for sell as medium quality cars
This is a result of imperfect information
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Document Summary

Econ 100b lecture 14 - may 29, 2018. Till now, we have assumed all economic agents are fully informed about the market specifics. We also assumed equal level of information. However, in any markets, economic agents do not have complete information or all of them do not have the same level of information. Examples: used car market, insurance, newly hired research assistant (labor market, credit cards, restaurant, etc. Imperfect information or asymmetry in information can be lead to market failure. The concept was discussed by george a. akerlof in the 1970s in relation to the used car market. Two kinds of cars: high quality and low quantity. Sellers know exact quality of the cars. In a market with perfect information, buyers and sellers both known the exact quality of the car. And the market sells 40,000 of each. 50% is the market share of high quality and 50% of low quality cars. Scenario 2: perfect information does not exist.

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