Are lemons really hot potatoes?

B-Tier
Journal: International Journal of Industrial Organization
Year: 2009
Volume: 27
Issue: 2
Pages: 250-263

Score contribution per author:

0.670 = (α=2.01 / 3 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We model the hazard rate for car ownership spells. Our model allows us to distinguish among different types of adverse selection effects by observing the type of unobserved heterogeneity across owners of the same car. Our empirical results strongly suggest that there is a lemons effect because there is significant unobserved heterogeneity. However, they also suggest that the lemons effect is caused by the first owner rather than the manufacturer. Had the manufacturer created the lemon, the unobserved heterogeneity would be positively correlated over all owners of a given car. Instead we observe a negative correlation between the unobserved heterogeneity term for the first owner and the unobserved heterogeneity term for subsequent owners.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:indorg:v:27:y:2009:i:2:p:250-263
Journal Field
Industrial Organization
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-01-25