George Akerlof
George A. Akerlof is an American economist and Koshland Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001 (shared with Michael Spence and Joseph E. Stiglitz).In "The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism", published in Quarterly Journal of Economics in 1970 he coined the term "Lemon" for a used car with hidden defects.
Akerlof received his Bachelor's degree from Yale University in 1962, and his PhD from MIT in 1966. 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 a professor of economics at UC Berkeley.
