India risks becoming a seller of lemons

Akerlof won a Nobel for showing why markets collapse when buyers cannot judge quality. Software is becoming one — and India is on the wrong side of it

I keep returning to an old paper about used cars.

George Akerlof wrote it in 1970 and had it turned down by three journals before it found a home. The argument annoyed people because it was so plain. You are buying a second-hand car. The seller knows whether it is sound. You don’t, and finding out is expensive,