PETER L. U
In 2001, George Akerlof, Michael Spence and Joseph Stiglitz were awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for their work on asymmetric (or hidden) information and markets. Hidden information exists in a market when one or both parties in a transaction hold more or less information about the exchange than the other party. In his seminal paper, Akerlof used the second-hand (used) car market as an example. The seller of a used car normally has more information about his car (its defects and “warts”) than the prospective buyer because he uses it every day.