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Cambridge Journal of Economics Advance Access originally published online on February 7, 2005
Cambridge Journal of Economics 2005 29(3):399-421; doi:10.1093/cje/bei009
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© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. All rights reserved.

Shared quality uncertainty and the introduction of indeterminate goods

Sylvie Lupton*

* University of Paris VIII

Address for correspondence: LED-CEPM, Department of Economics, University of Paris VIII, France; email: sylvielupton{at}yahoo.fr.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new category of goods, ‘indeterminate goods’, which will be compared with the classical framework of experience, search and credence goods (Nelson, 1970; Darby and Karni, 1973). This concept sheds new light on the nature and status of quality uncertainty through the following hypothesis: uncertainty about the product's quality can be shared by all agents of the market, and this uncertainty can be non-neutral and disrupt the market. We identify three types of shared uncertainty about the product's characteristics and the corresponding problems that can arise: shared uncertainty due to the emergence of a product (Hirschman, 1974), shared uncertainty concerning the past of a product (basing ourselves on the art market), and finally shared uncertainty regarding the future impacts of a product, through empirical data on product safety.

Key Words: Product quality • Quality uncertainty • Shared uncertainty • Indeterminate goods • Radical uncertainty

JEL classifications: D89, L15

Manuscript received May 23, 2003; final version received September 12, 2003.


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