George Akerlof Econ 490 fall 2016

George Akerlof is famous American economist that shared his knowledge while teaching at the University of California-Berkeley and Georgetown University. These two institutions are globally regarded as some of the top educational facilities in the word. "The Market for Lemons' is by far the most talked about and important article written by Akerlof. The title is misleading however, as he is actually referring to the market of used cars. Lemons refer to cars that are purchased but turn out to be defective. Since a consumer doesn't know if they are getting a top of the line car or a possibly unusable car (a lemon), the consumer is only willing to pay a price somewhere in the middle to assure the consumer has some safety behind his or her purchase. I have not heard of this economist before but his beliefs and thoughts relate to many of the topics we will be going over in class.