George Akerlof (redirected from Akerlof, George)

George Akerlof

An American economist and academic born in 1940. He is most noted for his work on information asymmetry, which summarizes how economic actors use and share information in order to gain advantages in the market. Akerlof argues, contrary to neo-classical economics, that markets usually are inefficient because information is not spread evenly. He shared the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001 for this work. Akerlof has also been noted for his work on the social effects of economic choices, particularly with regard to the availability of contraceptives and legal abortion.