Asymmetric information and the lemon market: An analysis on the Antalya used car market

According to George Akerlof's analysis of the Lemon Market, there are two types of vehicles in the used car market. Vehicles are defined as high quality and poor quality. A person who wants to buy a vehicle from the market does not have any information about the vehicles. Sellers, on the other hand, have more information about their vehicles and can hide information about their vehicles from buyers. When buyers examine the vehicles in the market, they do not have any information about the quality, so they can decide by looking at the prices and determine an average price. The quality vehicle seller will not want to sell his vehicle at the average price determined by the buyer and will withdraw from the market. The seller of a poor quality vehicle will be able to sell it at an average price higher than the price of the vehicle. As can be seen from Akerlof's example; In an economy dominated by the asymmetric information problem, poor quality products will be traded in the market, while quality products will be excluded from the market. The aim of this study is to reveal that the buyers who make the purchase in the used car market have less information than the sellers, so that the buyers incur losses because of this transaction. The study was carried out with in-depth interviews, one of the qualitative research methods, in the Antalya used car market. According to the general results of the study, buyers do not trust the information obtained from the seller. The buyers stated that the information they received from the seller later turned out to be incomplete and they lost money due to this situation. According to the analysis, asymmetric information problem plays a dominant role in the used car market in Antalya.