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You call it "economic orthodoxy" but it's really nothing of the sort. There's not even really a technical definition of "free markets" so I don't know where you

You call it "economic orthodoxy" but it's really nothing of the sort. There's not even really a technical definition of "free markets" so I don't know where you're getting your assertions. I think you're kind of gesturing at the concept of "perfect competition", which is rigorously defined and does have technical requirements [0], one of which is perfect information. But it actually doesn't really apply to the tax situation of the owner. In other words, for political and ethical reasons, there's a lot of reform that can and should be done, but I wouldn't dress up the argument in the form of "economic orthodoxy", unless you're talking about actual economic orthodoxies like lowering corporate income tax and preferring VAT to personal income tax. edit: I should soften my confidence here, it's been a while since I did economics. At least, I've never heard of transparency extending beyond the good or service being a requirement for perfect competition... do you have a source for that, or can you clarify how it would affect things? [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition#Idealizing_conditions_of_perfect_competition https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition#Idealizi...

lordnacho 5y ago
> unless you're talking about actual economic orthodoxies like lowering corporate income tax and preferring VAT to personal income tax. Those are more political ideologies than anything. By economic orthodoxy, I simply mean that it's a fairly common economic teaching that bad things happen when parties are uninformed. For instance Akerlof lemons is about information asymmetry. I'm not referring to any specific model (monopolistic competition etc) but to the general observation that a fair few economic models point out that having wrong information causes problems.
- dcolkitt 5y ago
  > For instance Akerlof lemons is about information asymmetry. Akerlof lemons have zero to do with knowing the salary of the CEO of the lemon company.
  - strgcmc 5y ago
    Are you so sure about that? Think about the CEOs themselves as the lemons... a lack of transparency can lead to the same adverse selection pressure that trends towards "lemon CEOs" flourishing, and pay transparency can help align the incentives somewhat.
  - nextaccountic 5y ago
    I don't understand - there is a job market, and like most markets here is information asymmetry. Companies have more information about compensation than workers. In this situation, having less salary information enable employers to take advantage of employees. We're talking about this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons right?

lordnacho 5y ago

> unless you're talking about actual economic orthodoxies like lowering corporate income tax and preferring VAT to personal income tax. Those are more political ideologies than anything. By economic orthodoxy, I simply mean that it's a fairly common economic teaching that bad things happen when parties are uninformed. For instance Akerlof lemons is about information asymmetry. I'm not referring to any specific model (monopolistic competition etc) but to the general observation that a fair few economic models point out that having wrong information causes problems.

dcolkitt 5y ago
> For instance Akerlof lemons is about information asymmetry. Akerlof lemons have zero to do with knowing the salary of the CEO of the lemon company.
- strgcmc 5y ago
  Are you so sure about that? Think about the CEOs themselves as the lemons... a lack of transparency can lead to the same adverse selection pressure that trends towards "lemon CEOs" flourishing, and pay transparency can help align the incentives somewhat.
- nextaccountic 5y ago
  I don't understand - there is a job market, and like most markets here is information asymmetry. Companies have more information about compensation than workers. In this situation, having less salary information enable employers to take advantage of employees. We're talking about this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons right?