The Market for Lemons.

Cue

The pool, worse this round than last, because the good have gone. The average has dropped, so the buyer discounts again, so the next-best sellers face the same insult the first did. At the inspection, the buyer tries to tell good from bad and cannot.

Action

Unraveling: The Squint, holding the appraiser's seat, kicks the tyres and still cannot reliably read the hidden quality, so the discount stands. Alongside, The Voucher at the signaller's seat offers a costly warranty to prove a unit is good, and is only half believed.

Stage

The Squint tables Kick the Tyres: try to verify by inspection, and fails, because the lemon looks like everything else on the lot. The Voucher tables Prove It: back the unit with a guarantee, but a promise a lemon could also make is not trusted, so the adverse selection grinds on, the good priced out round after round.

Tension

Everyone is still acting well, and the pool keeps rotting. The appraiser is diligent, the warranty is sincere, the discount is fair, and none of it stops the slide, because inspection cannot see what is hidden and a signal a liar could copy proves nothing. So the market unravels a tier at a time, each round shedding its best remaining unit, until what is left on the lot is a lemon at a lemon price.

Cue

The haggle, the buyer weighing an offer against the risk of a dud. The pooling price is on the table, and the buyer, knowing some units are lemons and unable to tell which, will not pay even that in full.

Action

Discounting: The Discounter, holding the buyer's seat, offers below the average, to cover the chance of a lemon. Withdrawal: The Passer at the lemon seller's seat accepts the offer gladly, while the good seller, offered too little, leaves by the exit.

Stage

The Discounter tables Price the Doubt: offer least for what cannot be checked, and the discount falls hardest on the units that were worth full price. The Passer tables Take the Average: pocket a premium for a poor thing and stay, as the cherry withdraws rather than sell below its worth.

Tension

Both sides are being sensible. The buyer is right to discount an unknown, and the good seller is right to refuse a price below worth, and the two right acts are one event: a fair caution and a fair refusal meeting in the middle, where the deal does not happen. So the good exit and the lemon stays, and the pool the market priced from is already worse than the price it quoted.

Cue

The lot, a good unit and a bad one for sale side by side. Each is at the listing, described in the same words, and only the seller of each knows which is which. The buyer cannot tell them apart.

Action

Listing: The Honest, holding the good seller's seat, lists a genuinely good unit and asks a fair price for it. Pooling: The Averager at the price-setter's seat, unable to price a unit that cannot be judged, prices the pool at the average.

Stage

The Honest tables Ask a Fair Price: name what the good thing is worth, over the hidden quality the buyer cannot see. The Averager tables Split the Difference: set one number for good and bad alike, and the pooling price forms, fair to the average and to nothing actually on the lot.

Tension

Nothing here is dishonest. The good seller is hiding nothing, the bad seller need not lie, and the buyer who cannot verify quality is right not to pay top price for a coin flip. But a single price for unlike things is a discount to the good and a premium to the bad in the same breath, and the moment it is quoted, the pool it averaged begins to change.

Cue

The lot, unravelled, mostly lemons, the good long gone. The market on its own has reached its floor, so the only way back is to make quality visible from outside the deal: a trusted stamp that a buyer will believe when a seller's word they will not.

Action

Certification: The Stamp, holding the certifier's seat, imposes a third-party check that a lemon cannot pass and a cherry can, so quality can finally be seen at the point of sale.

Stage

The Stamp tables Stamp It: certify the good so buyers will pay for it, and the good can return, at a price that now carries the cost of the certificate. The unraveling halts, and the lemons market is named at last: a market that had to buy back the trust it lost, paying a deadweight toll on every trade to see what a seller always knew for free.

Tension

Nobody was cheated, and the fix is a tax on the fog. The certification works, quality is visible, the good come back, and none of it is free: every trade now pays for the stamp that stands in for the trust the market could not keep, so the market is repaired at a permanent cost it did not need before the asymmetry drove the good away ... or no stamp is trusted, the fog holds, and the lot stays empty of everything but lemons.

Tenor

Brisk, fair, market-rate. Everyone pays a reasonable price for what they can see, and the deal is square on both sides. The voice of an honest marketplace, spoken by buyers who will not overpay a coin flip and sellers who will not undersell what they know they hold.

Undertow

Under the fairness, an average that punishes the good. One price for good and bad alike is a bargain for the lemon and a robbery of the cherry, so the cherry leaves, and the average it leaves behind is a little lower. The market never cheats: it only pays fairly for what it cannot see, and what it cannot see is quality, so quality quietly goes.

Nerve

The feeling of a fair deal in a fair market, buyer and seller both acting sensibly, watching the best goods vanish one by one because sensible is all anyone can be.

Echo

After the run: a lot full of lemons, a price no honest seller will take, and a marketplace where every trade was fair and the good all went somewhere else.

Projection

Even-handed, market-fair. Quotes the going rate without a flinch. One number for one kind of thing.

Action

Prices the whole pool at a single figure. A unit that cannot be judged cannot be priced alone. So the pool gets one tag.

Shadow

One price for unlike things is a discount to the good and a premium to the bad at once. The fairness of the average is precisely what is unfair. The market rate that suits nothing actually on the lot.

Tell

"This is what these go for." And these are not alike.

Projection

Careful, rational, will not overpay. Reads the room, counts the odds. Keeps a hand on the wallet.

Action

Offers below the average. Prices in the chance of a dud. Pays for what the pool is, not what it claims.

Shadow

Its caution is correct, and it falls hardest on the good. A discount on a pool robs the units that were worth full price. Fair distrust of the pool: exactly what drives out the cherries in it.

Tell

"I can't pay top money for something I can't check." And it is exactly right.

Projection

Straightforward. Plain-spoken. Knows the worth of a good thing to the coin. Nothing hidden, nothing dressed up.

Action

Lists a genuinely good unit. Asks a fair price. The floor comes back at the average. It thanks them, and withdraws.

Shadow

It has quality and no way to prove it. So its reasonable refusal to sell below worth is what bleeds the good from the market. Right to leave. And its leaving is the injury.

Tell

"It's worth more than that, and I can't make you see it." Then it takes the thing home.

Projection

Agreeable, unbothered, glad to deal. Easy in the room while the others go stiff. No reason to leave and no reason to bluff.

Action

Lists a poor unit at the market rate. Takes the average without a blink. Happy to close at the going number.

Shadow

Not lying. Not leaving. The average overpays it, so it stays where the good flee. Its contentment is the counterweight that makes the exit one-way.

Tell

"Sounds fair to me." For a lemon, the average always is.

Projection

Diligent, thorough. Kicks the tyres, lifts the hood. Takes the time nobody else will.

Action

Inspects hard. Reads every surface it can reach. Still cannot reliably read the hidden quality.

Shadow

Its diligence cannot see what is unobservable. So the honest inspection changes nothing, and the buyer discounts anyway. Effort against a thing effort cannot reach.

Tell

"Looks fine to me, but who knows." And no one does.

Projection

Neutral, trusted, third-party. Owes nothing to buyer or seller. Its word travels where theirs cannot.

Action

Imposes a check a lemon cannot pass and a cherry can. Makes the hidden quality visible at last. Draws the line the eye could never draw.

Shadow

Not a hero. A toll. The certification works, and it costs: it restores the market by taxing every trade for the trust the market could not keep. A fix that is a permanent fee on the fog.

Tell

"Certified, at a price." And the price is the deadweight the asymmetry left behind.

Projection

Sincere, confident. Stands behind the goods. Means every word of the promise.

Action

Offers a costly warranty. Puts a guarantee on the unit to prove it good. Backs the claim with its own coin.

Shadow

A promise a lemon could also make proves nothing. So the sincere signal is only half believed, unless it costs more than a liar would pay. The good seller's honesty, indistinguishable from a bluff.

Tell

"I'll guarantee it." And the buyer thinks: so would a crook.

Shown

The good seller leaving without a deal. A quiet turn at the gate, the cherry never unloaded.

Holds

The cherry, withdrawn. The best unit on offer, taken back rather than sold at the mean.

Offers

A better market, elsewhere. A private buyer, a friend, a shelf where worth is seen.

Withheld

The good, from the market it left. Each exit thins the pool and lowers the average for those who stay.

Shown

The offer weighed against the risk. A number lowered by every question that has no answer.

Holds

The discount, marked down for doubt. The gap between what is asked and what a wary buyer will pay.

Offers

A sensible price. Rational to the last cent, and cruel for it.

Withheld

The full worth of a good unit. The premium the honest seller earned and will not be paid.

Shown

The buyer checking the unit over. Hood up, tyres kicked, the ritual of a careful eye.

Holds

The effort to verify. An hour spent buying the feeling of having looked.

Offers

The look of due diligence. A show of care the seller can watch and wait out.

Withheld

The quality inspection cannot reach. What only miles will tell stays sealed under a clean surface.

Shown

Each unit described in the same words. The good and the bad read identical, line for line.

Holds

The hidden quality, known only to the seller. Behind the tidy copy sits the one who has driven it.

Offers

A fair description. Honest as far as words reach, and no further.

Withheld

The condition the words cannot carry. The rattle, the rust, the good bones: none survive the page.

Shown

The units for sale, side by side, alike at a glance. The eye finds no seam between the sound and the spoiled.

Holds

The pool, good and bad mixed. A cherry and a lemon share one row, one light.

Offers

A market to trade in. A floor where any unit can change hands.

Withheld

Any sign of which unit is which. The one fact that would set the price right, kept off the tag.

Shown

The market priced as one. Every unit tagged at the same average number.

Holds

The pooling price, the average of the mix. A figure built from good and bad, belonging to neither.

Offers

A going rate. A price the whole floor can agree to quote.

Withheld

A price that fits any single thing. The mean robs the cherry and flatters the lemon in the same breath.

Place

Across the pool, in who chooses to stay and who chooses to go. Not a sorting anyone does on purpose: just the sum of each seller's own decision, the good declining the average and the bad accepting it, leaving a pool that is worse than the one before.

Load bearing

Without it the market keeps a steady mix and the price finds a level. With it the mix curdles, because the Adverse Selection is the standing fact that a single price sorts by worth in exactly the wrong direction: the price the market can offer is acceptable only to those worth less than it, so the market retains what it overpays and loses what it underpays. It is selection with no selector, an outcome no one chose emerging from choices everyone made well, and it points one way, toward the bad, because the good have somewhere better to be and the bad do not.

Apparent

A market finding its level. It looks like ordinary sorting, buyers and sellers settling into a price, the market doing what markets do. What it is settling toward is the bottom, because the level a blind price finds is the level of the worst, not the average, once the better have been given a reason to leave.

Yearbook

Enacted by no one and produced by the honest leaving and the passer staying. It is the mechanism the play is named around: the good are not defrauded, they are selected out by a fair price that suits them least, so the market ends up adversely selected, holding the units it wanted to avoid and having driven off the ones it wanted to keep.

Place

Leaving by the exit, listed and then withdrawn. The genuinely good thing: the well-kept car, the solid codebase, the strong hire, held by someone who knows its worth and cannot make the buyer see it.

Load bearing

Without it the market is only lemons and there was never anything to lose. With it there is something good on offer and a reason it cannot stay, because the Cherry is worth more than the pooling price and its owner is not a fool: offered the average for an above-average thing, the rational move is to withdraw, keep it, sell it elsewhere, hold out for a market that can see. So the good does not get cheated into selling low, it declines to sell at all, and its leaving is the most reasonable act in the play and the most damaging.

Apparent

A seller being difficult. It looks like someone overvaluing their thing, refusing a fair offer, walking away from a market rate. From the buyer's blind side it is stubbornness. From the seller's it is simple arithmetic: the offer is below worth, so there is no deal.

Yearbook

Owned by the honest, who asks a fair price for a good thing and is offered an average one. It is the piece that makes the market bleed quality: every Cherry that withdraws lowers the average of what remains, so the adverse selection is not the good being tricked out of the market but priced out of it, one reasonable refusal at a time.

Place

At the haggle, in the gap between the asking price and the offer. The buyer's protection: knowing some units are lemons and being unable to tell which, they offer less than the average asked, to cover the chance of buying a dud.

Load bearing

Without it the buyer overpays for lemons and the market never punishes the good. With it the buyer offers below the average, and offering below the average is what starts the exit, because the Discount is the buyer being sensible about risk, and sensible about risk means paying least for what cannot be verified. It is not distrust of any seller in particular, it is distrust of the pool, and the pool contains cherries, so the cherries feel a discount they did not earn, and go. The buyer's fair caution and the good seller's fair refusal are the same event seen from two sides.

Apparent

Prudence. It looks like a careful buyer not throwing money at unknowns, which is exactly what a careful buyer should be. The caution is right. It is also the pressure that pushes the good out, because a discount applied to a pool falls hardest on the units that were worth full price.

Yearbook

Offered by the discounter, who will not pay top money for a coin flip. It is the buyer's half of the spiral: the Discount drives out the cherry, the cherry's leaving lowers the pool, the lower pool justifies a deeper Discount, and the two feed each other down toward the lemons market.

Place

At the listing, in the gap between what is written and what is true. The condition of the thing, known cold to the one selling it and invisible to the one buying: the engine's real history, the code's real quality, the candidate's real record.

Load bearing

Without it the buyer prices each unit for what it is and the market clears cleanly. With it the buyer cannot price a unit at all, only the pool it comes from, because the Hidden Quality is the information the seller has and the buyer does not, and the whole play is what a market does when one side can see and the other cannot. It is not deceit: the good seller is not hiding anything and the bad one need not lie, the quality is simply unobservable from the buyer's side of the table, and unobservable is enough.

Apparent

An ordinary sale. It looks like any market: a thing for sale, a price to agree, both parties free to deal or walk. The asymmetry is invisible, because the buyer does not know what they cannot see, only that they cannot pay top price for a thing they cannot check.

Yearbook

Held by the honest as surely as by the passer, and read by neither buyer. It is the root of the play: because quality is hidden, price cannot track it, so the pooling price forms for the whole pool at once, and a single price for unlike things is the wedge that splits the good from the market.

Place

Staying on the lot, listed and never withdrawn. The genuinely poor thing dressed as an ordinary one: the tired car, the brittle system, the weak hire, held by someone glad to be paid the average for it.

Load bearing

Without it the pooling price would be fair and no one would need to flee it. With it the pool always contains units the average overpays, because the Lemon is worth less than the pooling price and its owner knows it, so where the cherry withdraws in protest the Lemon stays in delight: the same average that robs the good rewards the bad, and the bad, being rewarded, never leaves. It is the counterweight that makes the exit one-directional, the good going and the bad remaining, so every departure enriches the lemon's share of the pool.

Apparent

An ordinary unit at the market rate. It looks like everything else on the lot, priced the same, described the same, indistinguishable at a glance, which is the whole point: if the Lemon looked like a lemon it would be priced like one, and it does not, so it is not.

Yearbook

Held by the passer, who is not lying and is not leaving. It is why the market fills with what it least wants: as the cherry exits and the Lemon stays, the pool tilts a little more toward lemons each round, and the average, faithfully tracking the pool, sinks to meet them.

Place

The gap between what the market could have traded and what it does. On one side, all the good units that exist, held now by people who would not sell them here. On the other, a lot of lemons at a lemon price. The Lemons Market is the standing distance between the goods and the market that drove them off.

Load bearing

Without it the play is a run of fair deals and a soft patch in prices. With it those are one object: a market that destroyed its own quality without a single unfair act, held whole by nobody, because the buyer who discounted never met the seller who withdrew, and no seat was answerable for the pool as a whole. It is Akerlof's result made flesh: information on one side only, a fair price on the other, and between them a market that unravels to its worst, not because anyone cheated but because no one could see.

Apparent

A cheap market. From any single trade it looks fine, even good: low prices, willing sellers, fair deals all round. The trap is invisible from within because nothing failed in any transaction, only in the sum, where the best goods are all missing and no one can point to the trade that lost them.

Yearbook

The market built it in good faith: the hidden quality unseen, the pooling price set, the cherry withdrawn, the discount deepened. The stamp can rebuild a thinner market by making quality visible, at a cost everyone now pays for the fog, or no signal is trusted and the lot stands empty. Nobody had a name for what the market had become ... until the day an honest seller could not get a fair price at any of it.

Place

At the pool, where the whole market is priced as one. The single number a buyer will pay for a unit they cannot judge: not the worth of this thing, which is unknown, but the worth of an average thing, which is all they can reason about.

Load bearing

Without it each unit fetches its own worth and the good and the bad are paid apart. With it the good and the bad are paid the same, and being paid the same is the whole injury: the Pooling Price is the market's rational response to hidden quality, one price for the pool, and it is a discount to the cherry and a premium to the lemon at exactly the same moment. It is fair in the only way a blind market can be, and unfair in the way that matters, because it pays for the average and the average is not what anyone is holding.

Apparent

The market rate. It looks like the fair going price, what these things sell for, quoted with a straight face. It is fair for an average unit. It is a robbery of every unit better than average and a gift to every unit worse, and the market cannot tell which is which to correct it.

Yearbook

Quoted by the averager, who prices the pool because the units cannot be priced. It is the hinge the play swings on: a fair price for the average is an unfair price for the good, so the cherry will not take it and the lemon will, and the pool the price was averaged from begins, that instant, to change.

Place

Through unraveling, one round of the market after another. The good leave, the average drops, the price drops, the next-best leave, the average drops again: a staircase going down, each step the reasonable response to the last.

Load bearing

Without it the play is a single round and a slightly worse pool. With it it is a collapse in slow motion, because the Unraveling is the loop that will not stop on its own: each departure of the good lowers the average, each lower average deepens the discount, each deeper discount drives out the new best remaining, so the market does not settle at a bad price, it descends through every price, shedding a tier of quality at each. It runs one way, down, because nothing in the loop ever raises the average, only lowers it, and a market that can only fall does not find a floor until it hits the lemons.

Apparent

A market softening. Read round by round it looks like ordinary decline, prices easing, a category going out of fashion. Each single step is unremarkable. The staircase is only visible from the top, and by then most of the good are already gone.

Yearbook

Driven by the discount and the cherry in turn, stopped only by the stamp. It carries the market from a fair average down to a lemon price, quality and price spiralling together, until the pool is all the lemon and even that will not clear, because a buyer who assumes the worst will not pay the average of a pool they no longer believe in.

Has

The inspection, thorough and slow. The effort to check, spent whether it finds or not.

Orders

Tell good from bad. Look past the surface to the unit underneath. Return a verdict the buyer can trust.

Loses

The verdict, to a quality it cannot see. The defect hides where the inspection does not reach. What cannot be found is priced as if it were bad.

Drives

Toward certainty, one honest unit at a time. Against information that is not there to be found. The fog outlasts the effort, so the good stay unproven.

Has

Money, ready to spend. No way to verify quality before the sale.

Orders

Do not overpay an unknown. Price for the pool, not the promise. Assume the worst the fog allows, and offer that.

Loses

The good, discounted out of reach. A safe offer meets only the units glad to take it. The prudent price selects for the units it fears.

Drives

Toward a safe price, which is a low one. The caution is rational and the result is ruin. By guarding against the lemon, it drives the good away.

Has

A trusted third-party check. A stamp the buyer will believe, sold at a fee.

Orders

Make quality visible. Certify the good and let the buyer see it. Charge for the service the market can no longer do without.

Loses

Nothing it holds. It charges for the service. The cost of seeing falls on the good it clears. The honest unit pays a toll the lemon created.

Drives

Toward a market that can see, unit by unit. At a fee the fog now demands of everyone. The good buy back the trust the average took from them.

Has

A genuinely good unit, sound to the core. Knowledge of its worth, exact and honest.

Orders

Sell it for what it is worth. Ask the true price, the one the unit has earned. Refuse the discount that treats the good as ordinary.

Loses

The sale. Offered only the average, the good withdraws. The market cannot pay the true price, so the true price leaves. Each honest exit lowers the average for whoever stays.

Drives

Toward a fair price, the number the unit deserves. Away from a market that cannot pay one. The good quietly leaving, because the average is a robbery.

Has

A poor unit, worth less than the average. The going rate, priced for a quality it lacks.

Orders

Sell it for the going rate, no less. Take the average, which overpays the truth. Say nothing the fog would not already hide.

Loses

Nothing. The average overpays it, sale after sale. The pool subsidizes the poor unit at the good one's cost. Every honest exit raises this seat's share of the whole.

Drives

Toward the sale, cheap to make and dear to price. The market rewards it for staying, so it stays. As the good leave, the average falls to meet it.

Has

The going rate for the pool, an honest average. One number to cover every unit at once.

Orders

Quote the market price. Set the average and let each unit meet it. Hold the rate steady against a quality you cannot see.

Loses

The ability to price a unit on its worth. One number cannot separate the sound from the spoiled. As the good depart, the average slides down to chase them.

Drives

Toward a fair average, computed and clean. Which is unfair to everything unlike the mean. The good underpaid, the poor overpaid, the pool draining.

Has

A good unit, sound and ready. A promise to back it, offered in good faith.

Orders

Prove the quality. Say what the unit is and stand behind the saying. Make the buyer believe the truth is true.

Loses

Belief, because a liar could promise the same. A word costs nothing, so a word convinces no one. The cheap signal cannot separate the good from the rest.

Drives

Toward a trusted signal, one that carries weight. Which only counts if it costs the liar more than the truth. A warranty, a stake, a burden the lemon cannot bear.

Initiated by

A market unable to trust itself. A floor so hollowed by exits that no honest seller expects a fair price.

Direction

Quality made visible from outside. An outside party puts a mark on the good that the pool could not read.

Lever

A costly check against a cheap claim, a stamp a lemon cannot buy. The check is priced so the good can pass it and the bad cannot afford to fake it, so the signal holds.

Echo

A market restored at a permanent toll. Trade returns, but every honest unit now pays the standing fee that dishonesty made necessary.

Initiated by

A buyer facing an unverifiable unit. Someone who cannot tell cherry from lemon, and must guard against being wrong.

Direction

The offer marked down for risk. Every unknown is priced as a loss and shaved off the bid.

Lever

Caution against worth, pay least for the uncheckable. The rational buyer bids the average, which is a bargain for a lemon and an insult to a cherry.

Echo

A price that punishes the good most. The better the unit, the further the offer falls below it.

Initiated by

A unit brought to market. A seller who knows exactly what they hold, and posts it plain.

Direction

The thing described, its quality unseen. Words go up, condition stays home.

Lever

Words against condition, the listing says what it cannot show. The good copy and the bad copy come out matching, so the difference dies on the page.

Echo

A pool the buyer must price blind. Reading everything and learning nothing, they brace for the worst.

Initiated by

Units that cannot be told apart. A floor of look-alikes, no signal to separate them.

Direction

One price for the whole pool. The market collapses the range into a single quoted number.

Lever

The average against the individual, fair to the mean and unfair to the rest. The mean is exactly right for the middle and exactly wrong for everything above and below it.

Echo

A rate that suits nothing on the lot. The good are underpaid, the bad are overpaid, and the price fits no real thing.

Initiated by

The good having gone. One tier of cherries has already left, and the next best now sit at the top.

Direction

Price and quality spiralling down. Each round strips another layer of good and drops the average again.

Lever

Each round against the last, lower pool and deeper discount and more exits. Falling prices push out the newly best, whose leaving falls the price further, and the loop tightens.

Echo

A market descending to lemons. Round by round the floor sinks until only the worst are left to trade.

Initiated by

A good unit offered the average. An honest seller handed a price built for a worse thing.

Direction

The cherry out of the market. The best stock quietly leaves rather than sell at the mean.

Lever

Worth against the offer, leave rather than sell low. When the pooling price sits below true value, the rational move is to walk, and the good always walk first.

Echo

A pool poorer for the leaving. With the cherries gone, the average drops, and the next round starts lower.

Direction

Name what the good thing is worth. Ask that, and no less. The unit is sound, the price is honest, the seat is powerless but right.

Orders

(The Honest lists the sound unit and asks its true worth.)

Implementation

(The Listing; the listing process; the buyer cannot open the hood, so cannot tell honest from bluff.)

Targets

• [ ] the good unit is listed
• [ ] a fair price is asked
• [ ] the buyer cannot see the quality
• [ ] the average is offered, and the good withdraws

Direction

Verify by inspection. Walk the unit, thump the panels, read the surface. The trouble is under the surface, where the walk does not reach.

Orders

(The Squint works the unit over, hunting a tell.)

Implementation

(The Inspection; the discounting process; the flaw is hidden by design, so the squint finds nothing sure.)

Targets

• [ ] the unit is examined hard
• [ ] the hidden quality stays hidden
• [ ] the verdict is uncertain
• [ ] the discount stands, unmoved

Direction

Offer least for what cannot be checked. The lemon hides in the pool, so every unit carries its risk. Pay for the fear, not the thing.

Orders

(The Discounter shaves the offer down for the unseen risk.)

Implementation

(The Haggle; the discounting process; the offer protects the buyer, and punishes the honest.)

Targets

• [ ] the risk of a lemon is priced in
• [ ] the offer falls below the average
• [ ] it lands hardest on the good
• [ ] the cherry is discounted out

Direction

Back the unit with a guarantee. Put a warranty behind the word, so the good can say what the lemon dare not. A signal, offered in good faith.

Orders

(The Voucher pins a warranty to the unit as proof.)

Implementation

(The Inspection; the certification process; a warranty a lemon can copy proves nothing at all.)

Targets

• [ ] a warranty is offered
• [ ] it is sincere
• [ ] a lemon could offer the same
• [ ] so it is only half believed

Direction

Quote one price for the pool. No unit can be told from its neighbour, so all get the same number: the middle, the average, the fair.

Orders

(The Averager sets one number across the whole pool.)

Implementation

(The Pool; the pooling process; one price cannot ask two questions, so it asks neither.)

Targets

• [ ] the units cannot be judged apart
• [ ] one number is set
• [ ] it is fair to the average
• [ ] and a robbery of the good

Direction

Make quality visible from outside the deal. A trusted check the lemon cannot buy or fake. The reversal: what the seller could not prove, the stamp proves for them.

Orders

(The Stamp imposes a check no lemon can pass.)

Implementation

(The Lot; the certification process; the check costs, and the price now carries the cost.)

Targets

• [ ] a trusted check is imposed
• [ ] a lemon cannot pass it
• [ ] the good return
• [ ] at a price that now carries the cost of the stamp

Direction

Sell the poor unit at the going rate. The pool hides the flaw, and the average pays more than the lemon is worth. Take it, and stay.

Orders

(The Passer lists the poor unit and pockets the average.)

Implementation

(The Lot; the pooling process; the average overpays the lemon, so the lemon never leaves.)

Targets

• [ ] the lemon is listed at the average
• [ ] the offer is accepted gladly
• [ ] the seller stays
• [ ] the pool tilts one more notch toward lemons