Antonio is a successful (and some would say the most handsome) vegetable and fruit seller on Helvetia Square Market in Zurich. His father, having immigrated from Italy in the 1960s, started a business with a market stall of barely 3 meters in length. Today, a 24-meter-long market stall, offering everything from albicocche to zucchini, employs the whole family. Every morning at 4:30 when the wholesale market opens its gates, Antonio and his father are there to buy their supply for the day. By 6 a.m. they have their stall ready for the first customers.

Sir Tim Berners Lee is worried about the spread of cult thinking over the web. When Cern, where he did his pioneering work on the web, turned on the Large Hadron Collider LHC in September 2008, fears about a black hole swallowing the Earth quickly spread over the internet. Other internet rumours hold that some harmless vaccines are dangerous to children.

Sir Tim considers the introduction of labels for trustworthiness of websites.

Information Economics treats important aspects of such labels. Chapter 6 discusses the economics of the supply of quality labels like credit ratings, Chapter 10 shows how misleading information can spread even among relatively rational individuals.

Stuck with a problem? Ready to help a colleague in trouble? Please visit our Discussion Forum. Help to develop the Forum, which is still in its infancy, into a valuable source for students, teachers, and researchers.