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信息不对称现象

Information Asymmetry

信息不对称

Information asymmetry is a prevalent issue in economics. In most sales transactions, the seller has more information than the buyer, and as such has the opportunity to try to pass off low quality or defective products for higher prices. This leads to buyer distrust and the old idiom: Buyer Beware.

信息不对称是经济学中普遍存在的问题。 在大多数商品交易中，卖方所掌握的信息比买方多，因此能够将劣质品或次品以高价出售，从而导致买方对其失去信任。有成语云：“无奸不商”。

Adverse selection is a market process where information asymmetry causes negative results. A good example is health insurance. Insurance companies depend on a mix of clients: they need a certain number of healthy individuals (low-risk) to pay premiums and not use a lot of services so that the premium prices can average out. However, the people most likely to buy health insurance are people who need it because of health problems (high-risk). These people are more costly to the insurance companies because they need more services than a healthy person. The insurance companies do not know every new policy applicants health status (but they certainly do everything in their power to find out as much as they can), and this lack of information requires the companies to raise premiums to mitigate the risk. This increase in premiums causes the healthiest people to cancel their insurance. This leads to a further increase in premium price as the insurance companies now have a riskier group, which leads to the now healthiest people canceling their insurance, continuing the “adverse selection spiral”, until the only people insured are the direly ill. At this point, the premiums paid will not even begin to offset the costs of the sick. In theory, this could lead to the collapse of the health insurance industry, however, this is an unlikely scenario as their risk is diminished by things such as employer offered insurance, which includes a large set of healthy individuals who average out the risk.

逆向选择是信息不对称导致的负面影响。健康保险是典型的例子。保险公司依赖客户群体生存：他们需要一定数量的健康客户（低风险）来支付保费，并且不需为他们提供服务，以便平衡他人保费。然而，有可能购买健康保险的人是自身存在健康问题的人（高风险）。对于保险公司而言，这些客户需要更多服务，因而成本更高。但事实上，保险公司并不了解每一位投保人的健康状况（但他们一定尽可能地去了解），这种信息不对称使得保险公司进一步提高保费以减轻风险。但保费增加又导致健康状况良好的客户取消购买保险，保险公司客户群体的整体健康状况下降，进而导致保费价格进一步上涨，又导致现有客户中健康状况的客户取消保险，形成“逆向选择怪圈”，终投保人均为患有疾病的客户。此时，保险公司收取的保费甚至不能抵消病人的花费。从理论上来说，健康保险公司可能会因此破产。但实际上，由于其他公司投保客户群中包含许多健康客户，保险公司的破产风险就大大降低了。

Another information asymmetry example is the “Market for Lemons”, a term coined by George Akerlof. The used car market is the classic example of quality uncertainty. A defective used car (“lemon”) is generally the result of untraceable actions, like the owners driving style, maintenance habits and accidents. Because the buyer does not have this information, their best assumption is that the vehicle is of average quality, and therefore will pay only an average fair price. As a result, the owner of a car in great condition (“cherry”), will not be able to get a price high enough to make selling the cherry worthwhile. End result: the owners of good cars will not sell their vehicles in the used-car market. This reduces the quality of cars in the used-car market, this reduces the price buyers will pay, this further reduces the quality of cars sold.

另一个信息不对称的例子是经济学家George Akerlof提出的“柠檬市场”。 二手车市场是质量信息不对称的典型例子。 一辆有缺陷的二手车（“柠檬”）的质量难以考察，因为这需要了解原车主的驾驶风格、保修习惯和是事故记录。买家因为没有这个信息，所以多只能假设这辆车的质量“还可以”，并按照这种假设来支付相应的价格，而质量较好的汽车（“樱桃”）也无法以合理的价格售出。终结果就是质量较高的汽车不会在二手车市场上出售。在这种情况下，二手车市场的汽车质量下降，买家的购买价格下降，从而进一步降低了待售汽车质量。