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which of the following situations are examples of adverse selection and which ar

ID: 1246889 • Letter: W

Question

which of the following situations are examples of adverse selection and which are examples of agency problems? Explain your reasoning for each case. 1. A restaurant offers a free birthday cake to patrons who dine there on their birthday. The restaurant typically has 200 customers each night. The manager calculates that the probability of a customer having a birthday that night is 1/365. He orders 3 cakes each night, believing that will be enough. He runs out of cakes 5 nights in a row. 2. Overworked small business owner, Jerry White, decides to hire a manager to run some of the day-to-day operations of his business. When White is away, however, the manager goes home early, lets employees leave to run personal errands, etc. 3. Defendant Ida hires a lawyer recommended by her friends, Willie, to defend her in a shoplifting case. At the day of the trial, Willie shows up unprepared: he is unfimiliar with the case or the applicable laws, penalties, etc. Ida has a bad feeling going into the trial.

Explanation / Answer

Adverse Selection Problem

It refers to a market process in which undesired results occur when buyers and sellers have assymetric information (access to different information); the "bad" products or services are more likely to be selected.

Agency Problem

Concerns the difficulties in motivating one party, to act on behalf of another.

1. A restaurant offers a free birthday cake to patrons who dine there on their birthday. The restaurant typically has 200 customers each night. The manager calculates that the probability of a customer having a birthday that night is 1/365. He orders 3 cakes each night, believing that will be enough. He runs out of cakes 5 nights in a row. : this is Adverse selection problem

2. Overworked small business owner, Jerry White, decides to hire a manager to run some of the day-to-day operations of his business. When White is away, however, the manager goes home early, lets employees leave to run personal errands, etc. : this is an examples of agency problems

3. Defendant Ida hires a lawyer recommended by her friends, Willie, to defend her in a shoplifting case. At the day of the trial, Willie shows up unprepared: he is unfimiliar with the case or the applicable laws, penalties, etc. Ida has a bad feeling going into the trial. :this is Adverse selection problem