Library · Tag
Signaling
An annotated collection of 2 papers on signaling, spanning 1970 to 1973. Featuring works by George A. Akerlof, A. Michael Spence — each with editorial commentary oriented to digital product practice.
The Market for 'Lemons': Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism
George A. Akerlof, 1970 · The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 84, No. 3
Akerlof's foundational demonstration that information asymmetry alone can destroy a market. Using the used car trade as his model — where sellers know whether a car is good or a "lemon" but buyers cannot tell — he shows…
Job Market Signaling
A. Michael Spence, 1973 · The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 87, No. 3
Spence's canonical model of how agents in markets with asymmetric information use costly signals to reveal their type. The original setting is the labour market: employers cannot observe worker productivity before hiring…