5
$\begingroup$

I'm looking for a complete run down of all different kinds of market failures;

Wikipedia has a list but I'm not sure if there might some obscure kinds of market failures that Wikipedia is missing. Are there types of Market failures that are not mentioned in this the standard textbooks/wikipedia?

Wikipedia: "Market failures are often associated with time-inconsistent preferences, information asymmetries, non-competitive markets, principal–agent problems, externalities, or public goods."

Improve this question
$\endgroup$

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
0
$\begingroup$

Market failures often arise due to deviations from the classical assumptions of economics (e.g. Perfect Competition, Perfect Rationality, Perfect Information, Unbounded Computational Capacity, ...etc). There are lists of well-documented and studied market failures and the factors driving them (monopoly is sometimes considered a case of market failure); however, there cannot be an exhaustive list as that would be equivalent to placing a bound on the number of ways people can behave unexpectedly

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
1
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Excuse me but this seems to me to be an inane criticism. Naturally not every instance of market failure can be listed; but presumably economists have abstracted from the particular and came up with a number of categories that includes all these known particular instances. In fact your own post says so. 'the number of ways people can behave unexpectedly' seems to be encompassed in failures of 'Perfect Competittion, Perfect Rationality, Perfect Information, Unbounded Computational Capacity'.' $\endgroup$
    – Lee Wang
    Nov 19, 2016 at 10:39
-1
$\begingroup$

There is a huge amount of misinformation about market failures online, even on the wikipedia article. Many of the things people often list as market failure are very much not market failures. In particular, tvbc is completely wrong (but is in good company of many others who parrot the same wrong information) that deviation from perfect competition are market failures.

There are only 3 broad types of market failure:

  1. Externalities
  2. Anti-competitive markets
  3. Suboptimal initial resource allocation

I explain in the article why these are the only 3 possible market failures.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
2
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ (-1) I dislike both the promotional aspect of this answer and that it misses information asymmetry completely. $\endgroup$
    – Giskard
    Sep 30 at 7:55
  • $\begingroup$ Information asymmetry isn't a market failure unless its fraud. Its absurd to dislike an answer because someone has written specifically about this. $\endgroup$
    – B T
    12 hours ago

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge that you have read and understand our privacy policy and code of conduct.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.