Tuesday

 Mostly summarized from Gregory Mankiw’s Principles of Economics, 5th Ed.

PART 7 Topics for Further Study
Chapter 22 of 36 Frontiers of Microeconomics
Section 3 of 18
…
This chapter on microeconomics considers three topics at the discipline's frontier:
1- The economics of asymmetric information
2- Political economy
3- Behavioral economics
…
1- The economics of asymmetric information
Information asymmetry is a difference in knowledge of and access to relevant information by different persons involved in a matter.
Often one person has more information than another about a matter being considered.
Awareness of asymmetric information can shed light on many aspects of the world from the market for used cars to the custom of gift giving.
…
Examples of information asymmetry:
A worker knows more than his employer about how much effort he makes doing his job.
A used car seller knows more than the buyer about the car's condition.
In each case the uninformed party, the employer and the car buyer, would like to know all the relevant information.
But the informed party, the worker and the car seller, may have an incentive to conceal it.
Asymmetric information is very prevalent and economists have made much effort in recent years studying its effects.
In a sense the waste generated by asymmetric information is deadweight loss.
… …
How have modern information technologies reduced the problem of asymmetric information?
ChatGPT:
Modern information technologies reduce the deadweight loss caused by asymmetric information by making markets more transparent and easier to monitor.
Search engines and comparison tools lower the cost of finding prices and alternatives.
Reviews, ratings, and reputation systems help buyers judge quality and discourage dishonest sellers.
Data analytics and algorithms improve screening in areas like credit, insurance, and hiring, allowing more mutually beneficial trades to occur.
Modern information technologies have helped consumers mainly by reducing uncertainty, lowering prices, and expanding choice:
Better price transparency:
Comparison sites and online marketplaces make it easy to find the lowest price, reducing overpayment and price dispersion.
Improved quality assessment:
Reviews, ratings, and detailed product information help consumers avoid low-quality or fraudulent sellers.
Greater bargaining power:
Easier access to alternatives weakens seller market power and improves consumer surplus.
More access to markets:
Consumers can safely transact with distant or unknown sellers because reputation systems and payment protections reduce risk.
Personalized offers:
Data-driven matching tailors products, credit, and services to consumer needs, making more transactions viable.
Overall, consumers face less risk and lower information costs, leading to more confident purchasing decisions and fewer welfare-reducing market failures.
… …
asymmetric information
hitaishō jōhō
非対称情報
... ...
Two early history advances in most languages were replacing logogram characters with letters and putting spaces between words.
Japanese only partially uses its own “kana” alphabet letters in place of “kanji” Chinese characters and does not use spaces.
Since it's perfectly phonetic, easy to pronounce and borrows many words from other languages especially English, Japanese would be a great choice for the future universal language if it used Roman letters and spaces.
In Japanese a macron (dash mark) is shown on top of vowels to make a
long vowel sound. For example o sounds like “oh” and ō sounds like “ou.”
Notice:
-how choppy spoken Japanese sounds, making it easy to pronounce
-phrases written in Japanese using Roman letters are usually shorter than written English, making it more efficient to write and speak
From AI: “In the Meiji era (1868–1912), some Japanese scholars including Nishi Amane advocated abolishing the Japanese writing system entirely and using romaji (Roman letters) instead.”
…
List of countries that have changed to Roman script:
Albania
Azerbaijan
Indonesia
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Malaysia
Moldova
Romania
Somalia
Tanzania
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan
Vietnam