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The fact that different people know different things: workers know more about their ability than does the firm; the person buying insurance knows more about his health, whether he smokes and drinks immoderately, than the insurance firm; the owner of a car knows more about the car than potential buyers; the owner of a firm knows more about the firm than a potential investor; the borrower knows more about his risk and risk taking than the lender

Joseph Stiglitz, Information and the change in the paradigm in Economics, 2003