market failure

English

market failure (plural market failures)

(economics) A situation in which the allocation of goods and services by a free market is not efficient.
- 2007, Clifford Winston, Government Failure versus Market Failure: Microeconomics Policy Research and Government Performance, Brookings Institution Press (→ISBN), page 3:
  From a policy perspective, market failure should be a matter of concern when market performance significantly deviates from the appropriate efficiency benchmark.
- 2007 November 29, Alison Benjamin, “Stern: Climate change a 'market failure'”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:
  "Climate change is a result of the greatest market failure the world has seen. The evidence on the seriousness of the risks from inaction or delayed action is now overwhelming. We risk damages on a scale larger than the two world wars of the last century. The problem is global and the response must be a collaboration on a global scale."

a situation in which the allocation of goods and services by a free market is not efficient