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A Scent of Lemon—Seller Meets Buyer with a Noisy Quality Observation

Author

Listed:
  • Mark Voorneveld

    (Department of Economics, Stockholm School of Economics, Box 6501, 113 83 Stockholm, Sweden)

  • Jörgen W. Weibull

    (Department of Economics, Stockholm School of Economics, Box 6501, 113 83 Stockholm, Sweden
    Department of Economics, École Polytechnique, 91 128 Palaiseau Cedex, France)

Abstract

We consider a market for lemons in which the seller is a monopolistic price setter and the buyer receives a private noisy signal of the product’s quality. We model this as a game and analyze perfect Bayesian equilibrium prices, trading probabilities and gains of trade. In particular, we vary the buyer’s signal precision, from being completely uninformative, as in standard models of lemons markets, to being perfectly informative. We show that high quality units are sold with positive probability even in the limit of uninformative signals, and we identify some discontinuities in the equilibrium predictions at the boundaries of completely uninformative and completely informative signals, respectively.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Voorneveld & Jörgen W. Weibull, 2011. "A Scent of Lemon—Seller Meets Buyer with a Noisy Quality Observation," Games, MDPI, vol. 2(1), pages 1-24, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jgames:v:2:y:2011:i:1:p:163-186:d:11740
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    3. Ellingsen, Tore, 1997. "Price signals quality: The case of perfectly inelastic demand," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 43-61, November.
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    11. Jörgen Weibull & Lars-Göran Mattsson & Mark Voorneveld, 2007. "Better May be Worse: Some Monotonicity Results and Paradoxes in Discrete Choice Under Uncertainty," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 63(2), pages 121-151, September.
    12. Maskin, Eric & Tirole, Jean, 1992. "The Principal-Agent Relationship with an Informed Principal, II: Common Values," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(1), pages 1-42, January.
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    Cited by:

    1. Alós-Ferrer, Carlos & Prat, Julien, 2012. "Job market signaling and employer learning," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(5), pages 1787-1817.
    2. Mamada, Robert, 2022. "The market for lemons and information theory," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 107-112.
    3. Fabian Herweg & Daniel Müller, 2016. "Overconfidence in the Markets for Lemons," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 118(2), pages 354-371, April.
    4. Silvia Martinez-Gorricho, 2020. "Signalling, Information and Consumer Fraud," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-25, July.

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