The Half-Life of Asymmetric Information

The title of this post is a reference to an excellent book edited by Dan Klein and Fred Foldvary, The Half-Life of Policy Rationales: How New Technology Affects Old Policy Issues.

The book looks at how many of the arguments given to justify state intervention – such as public goods arguments – are not intrinsic realities. They can quite often be down to little more than technological limitations. As new technology develops, the issues associated with public goods or common-pool resources can be eliminated...