The Wall

[MadMojoMonkey]

Probably depends on who is defining it.

Fair enough.

Can you elaborate on asymmetric information a bit?
Or even provide a link which you endorse as a good source for defining the term?
I'm unfamiliar.

(Sorry if you're in process of replying to my other post on this subject.)

[Poopadoop]

Fair enough.

Can you elaborate on asymmetric information a bit?
Or even provide a link which you endorse as a good source for defining the term?
I'm unfamiliar.

(Sorry if you're in process of replying to my other post on this subject.)

It's not that complicated in its essence, it just refers to a difference in the potential upside/downside of an outcome. Buying a lottery ticket is asymmetric because the upside is huge and the downside is small. The risk of a meteor landing on your house has a huge downside and the upside if it doesn't happen is small (life just goes on).

Taleb also applies it to situations where decisions are being made whose outcomes can be extreme, but don't directly affect the person(s) making the decision. An example would be financial institutions and the 2008 crisis. Assuming their actions caused all the bad outcomes, but they themselves didn't suffer financially due to bailouts, there's an asymmetry between them having no stake (or a limited stake) in the matter themselves and the overall consequences to people in general.

Edit: sorry I thought we were still talking about Taleb. D'oh!

[wufwugy]

Fair enough.

Can you elaborate on asymmetric information a bit?
Or even provide a link which you endorse as a good source for defining the term?
I'm unfamiliar.

(Sorry if you're in process of replying to my other post on this subject.)

I can post something if I come across it. It's a topic I mostly only covered in class. It was sort of a light bulb where I realized that's the technical term for the types of things we talk about regarding problems in markets. For example, when I claim that people are individually more productive at spending their money than the government is spending the money instead, my claim is predicated in part on the idea that the people individually have less asymmetric information in relevant scenarios than the government does. The two main types of asymmetric information covered are adverse selection and moral hazard.