e-cigarettes

Information failure occurs when consumers and producers are not given any information or they are not given exact information- so they are not aware of all aspects of things they deal with.
Talking about electronic cigarette market, the information failure consists in uncertainty whether this product is bad for health or not.
Electronic cigarettes are advertised as an absolutely healthy product and as a good alternative for real smoking. It is even said that the electronic cigarette tastes, smells and looks as a real one - isn't that attractive for smokers? And this advertisement does work - especially for the people who want to get rid of this bad habit.
Electronic cigarettes can also be consumed for economical reason - it costs about 40-50 pounds, so do 9 packs of usual cigarettes. But the electronic one, of course, you can use much longer.

Are these cigarettes really harmless?Some research has been done, but no prove was suggested, so we can't be convinced in anything totally.

Looking on e-cigarette market, we should mention asymmetric information.The existence of asymmetric information is a special case of the information failure, when different parts of people have different amount of information. For example, in online shopping services the buyer is not aware of the quality of the product bought - wrong description may be provided as well.

So, asymmetric information is certainly presented in this market as the producer gets more information about the technology than the consumer - he might be aware of all steps of producing this good. Producer may also hide some characteristic of the good in order to get more revenue from this 'amazing innovation'.


Government intervention can reduce market failure, but not entirely. Government may subsidise the research on new type of cigarettes, so that people are given right information.
Government can also introduce fines on smoking in public places and near buildings.