Saturday 20 February 2010

No 86: Local council smoking misinformation

WHEN we think of misuse of asymmetric information, we almost always discuss private sector businesses giving wrong information to consumers to gain profits (car mechanics, plumbers, dentists, estate agents, etc.).

But here in Sussex has recently been an example of a local government giving out wrong information, as reported here.

Economics argues that the negative externalities of smoking are many. Do you think it is ok to try and to reduce them by any means possible?

1 comment:

  1. I think it is OK to reduce the level of smokers in THAT cuz the initial intention was to reduce the negv externalties created by consuming cigarettes. It's true that the misuse of asymmetric information (and one sided advertisement of NRT) poses some ngtv externalities as well however, I believe we could regard NRT as a merit good(service) which the potential pstv externalities exceed the costs of consuming the NRT service..

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