The Brokerage of Asymmetric Information

Abstract

In this paper we oversee the logic of information sets, firstly handling information and markets in perfect environments and, secondly, dealing with information and markets in imperfect environments, in the context of bounded rationality. Further on, asymmetric information is addressed together with the role of opportunistic behaviour through hidden action, hidden information, the free-rider problem and signaling, expanding on financial accounting and asymmetric information. At last, asymmetric markets are expanded on, reviewing the buyers’ and sellers’ markets so as to handle the performance of intermediaries who stand ready to provide with immediacy and liquidity to buyers and sellers of financial assets. There are two contributions that this paper brings forward: firstly, an intuitive treatment of information sets in the context of mathematical Set Theory so as to make tractable some issues still neglected. Secondly, we claim and develop that a careful assessment of information sets makes headway towards an approach that regards market makers and other intermediaries as brokers of asymmetric information.