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)
