While doctors are likely to be focused only on saving lives, medical insurance companies may be focused on increasing the quantity of healthcare a person receives. In this brief scene, we consider whether it’s appropriate for insurance companies to charge without consent and whether doctors may be incentivized to do more than necessary to increase earnings.
I Can See Your Voice — Asymmetric Information
Could you tell if someone is a good singer just by the way they look or by how they lip-sync a song? In this music game show, contestants perform a variety of tasks and judges have to decide whether or not the person is actually a good singer. The show’s host and the performers know the truth, but the judges are left in the dark. This show, and even just the concept of the show, is a great example of asymmetric information. For judges, it’s hard to make decisions with limited information, but they’ll use signals to see if they can be successful.
Full episodes of I Can See Your Voice can be found on Fox: https://www.fox.com/i-can-see-your-voice/
Thanks to Shreyasee Das for the recommendation!
Volkswagen — Buying a Used Car
Asymmetric information is a condition in which one party to a transaction has information that isn’t known to the other side of the party. This can disrupt the market for used goods because the buyer may not know the full extent of what they’re purchasing. In this Volkswagen ad, the father and son duo are unaware of the older lady’s past experiences with the cars. This is a great segue to Akerlof’s Market for Lemons, which is based on the the used car market.
Friends — Joey Loses His Insurance
Joey finds out that he hasn’t been working enough lately, so the Screen Actors Guild is canceling his insurance. He’s quick to point out the moral hazard involved in insurance because now he has to be more careful!
Later in the episode, he comes down with a hernia after working out. Since his insurance has lapsed, he doesn’t have enough money to go to the doctor to get it looked out. Luckily, Joey is able to find a part as “dying man” and he ends up getting his health insurance back.
Thanks to Isabel Ruiz for the clip suggestion!
Adam Ruins Funerals
When a loved one dies, and we are in a state of grief, we often aren’t making the most informed decisions. Funeral homes know this and use this fact to charge higher prices. They can do so because our price elasticity of demand for end life services is high. There are few reasons for this. First, there is not enough time to “shop around” for better pricing on the goods and services provided as a funeral is often expected to take place quickly after a person’s death. Second, there is high asymmetric information about exactly what is actually necessity and what is more a luxury (the clip pokes fun of this with the casket featuring WiFi). Last, there are no close substitutes for end of life services – you only have two options: burial or cremation. For these reasons, we are less sensitive to price when shopping for end of life services for our loved ones and will pay a higher prices consequently.’
Thanks to Erin Yetter for the submission and description! Follow her on Twitter!
Adam Ruins Everything is a half-hour informational comedy were host, Adam Conover, debunks popular myths. Each episode is divided into 3 segments with some common theme. In the Spring of 2018, James Tierney and I sat down to go through all three seasons of Adam Ruins Everything to pick out examples in each episode that could be used in an economics course. If you’re curious about the paper, you can read about it here.
Adam Ruins Everything — Revealing Salaries
Adam Ruins Everything is a half-hour informational comedy were host, Adam Conover, debunks popular myths. Each episode is divided into 3 segments with some common theme. In the Spring of 2018, James Tierney and I sat down to go through all three seasons of Adam Ruins Everything to pick out examples in each episode that could be used in an economics course. If you’re curious about the paper, you can read about it here.
In this video, Adam goes through notion that sharing salaries is bad for workers, but focuses on how this practice creates information asymmetry in the workplace and gives managers the power to lower wages since workers aren’t well informed.
Orange is the New Black — State of Uterus (NSFW)
There is a feud waging between C and D blocks. It is C Blocks time for some revenge, so the leader “Badison” devises a plan to defecate on C Blocks clean uniforms. Meanwhile, the guards of the prison are involved in a fantasy prisoner league (think fantasy football, but with points for things prisoners might do or get in trouble for). The guards see what is happening and have to decide to whether or not to intervene.
Asymmetric Information – the two guards outside of the laundry room have access to information the other guards in the league do not. Further, their decision to intervene or not will directly impact points in the game. Could use this to talk about how asymmetric information can affect the outcome of negotiations, trade, games, etc.
Cost-Benefit analysis – the guard explicitly uses this term, which I love, when deciding if they are going to intervene. C Block will undoubtedly retaliate so is the possible ensuing violence worth the potential benefit of points in the game. The guards have the compare the options before making a decision.
Thanks to Erin Yetter for the clip and the description! Check our her website as well.
The Daily Show — Moral Hazard
Moral hazard occurs when a party that is protected from risk behaves differently from the way it would behave if it were fully exposed to the risk. Here, the last line is a perfect example of moral hazard, when Aasif Mandvi says, “Hey man! You can get drunk and have a great time and it doesn’t matter ‘cuz you’ve got health insurance!” Now students can fall off of keg stands and get hurt but that’s ok, they have health insurance now!
Thanks to James Tierney for the clip and the description!
NY Times — The 1998 NFL Draft: A Look Back at the Epic Ryan Leaf Bust
One of the struggles with hiring workers is evaluating talent, specifically for college athletes considering the NFL. In 1998, Ryan Leaf appeared to be the top college athlete even with some questionable character flaws. The Colts, instead, chose to select Peyton Manning with their first pick of the draft despite some criticism. Manning went on to be one of the winningest QBs in NFL history while Ryan Leaf is considered one of the biggest NFL busts in the history of the league. This clip from the New York Time’s Retro Reporting division revisits that controversial decision.
Budlight Hitchhiker Commercial
When one party has more information about themselves than the other party, economists describe this situation as asymmetric information. We know a lot about our “true” selves, but we can use signals to send to other parties to either conceal our true selves or hide a characteristic we don’t want to reveal. In this clever Budweiser ad, the hitchhiker is trying to conceal his real intentions by carrying a case of Bud Light.