Archive for April 2nd, 2008
The story of ‘Lemons’
His paper was about “Market for Lemons”. Well, some people may like apples than lemons, but who cares, they are just fruits.
1. June of 1967 , Akerlof-a newly awarded PhD, sent the lemons to The American Economic Review.
result: we did not publish papers on subjects of such triviality (editor)
2. Upon rejection, the lemons was sent to another journal at the same year: The Review of Economic Studies
result: the Review did not publish papers on topics of such triviality.
3. Another try, the lemons went to the Journal of Political Economy.
result:” if this paper was correct, economics would be different”. again, a clear rejection from the journal editor.
After all of these rejections, Akerlof’s reaction was “I may have despaired, but I did not give up”
4. Finally,
*Akerlof, George A., “The Market for ‘Lemons’: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism.” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 84(3), pp. 488-500, 1970.
AND..
The Market for ‘Lemons,’ , a 13-page paper written during George Akerlor’s first year as assistant professor at Berkeley in 1966-1967 was the paper that led him awarded the Nobel prize in Economics in 2001. The paper concerns how horse traders respond to the natural question: “if he wants to sell that horse, do I really want to buy it?”
(http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/articles/akerlof/index.html)
