Web Quotableonline.com Frasescelebres.org Greatbookscollection.org

George Arthur Akerlof (born June 17, 1940) is an
United States|American economist and Koshland
Professor of Economics at the University of
California, Berkeley. He won the Bank of Sweden
Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred
Nobel in 2001 (shared with Michael Spence and
Joseph E. Stiglitz). 

Akerlof is perhaps best known for his article,
"The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and
the Market Mechanism", published in Quarterly
Journal of Economics in 1970, in which he
identified the severe problems that may afflict
markets characterized by asymmetrical information.

In Efficiency Wage Models of the Labor Market,
Akerlof and coauthor Janet Yellen propose
rationales for the efficiency wage hypothesis in
which employers pay above the market
clearing|market-clearing wage, in contradiction to
the conclusions of neoclassical economics.

Akerlof received his 
Bachelor's degree from Yale University in 1962,
and his Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of
Technology|MIT in 1966 and has taught at London
School of Economics. His maternal
great-grandfather was born in Oakland, California
and was an alumnus of UC Berkeley (Class of 1873).
 His maternal grandfather was also a Berkeley
alumnus. His wife Janet Yellen is president of the
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and was a
professor of economics at UC Berkeley and served
on President Bill Clinton's Council of Economic
Advisors.

==See also==
*List of economists
*List of economics consultancies and think tanks

==External links==
*http://www.nobel.se/economics/laureates/2001/aker
lof-autobio.html Autobiography on Nobel E-museum
*http://emlab.berkeley.edu/users/akerlof/
Akerlof's Berkeley webpage