The information economy assumes that market participants are provided with imperfect information and allows to establish models of phenomena that have not been clearly understandable so far. It also accounts for the existence of certain market institutions, which is often not fully explicable under the economic criteria when judging from the standpoint of the traditional theory of economy. It appears that even the tiniest imperfections of information and non-zero costs of obtaining the information may bring about far-reaching consequences, utterly twisting the results of the analysis. Issues clarified by the application of the information economy, such as the problems of selection, quality of goods, impulses or the extent of temptation for abuse (moral gambling), lead to interesting, often non-intuitive conclusions when considered in the context of the labour market.

For example, the employers' inability to control the reliability of employees may lead to a situation where the employees are paid salaries in excess of the market rates to encourage them to work in a fair and honest manner. If such an approach becomes a common practice on the market, the average salary levels will rise above an economically practicable level, leading to unemployment. However, companies will not longer see it as being worthwhile to cut salaries back, since unemployment is a factor that introduces some discipline among employees (suspensions for absenteeism and negligence will not pay).

Another example is the problem of selection (identification of unobservable characteristics). Since the employer is not aware of the actual capacities of an employee at the time of their commencement of employment, the salary that he offers should be adequate for the average skills (qualifications) available on the market. However, such a salary could become inadequate in case of the employees with the highest qualifications and result in their leaving the market, thus decreasing the available pool of suitably qualified labour. In order to prevent this and to attract better candidates, the employees offer salaries above the market level, at the same time accepting the unemployment which results from such an approach. Another attempt to solve the selection problem can also be made by establishing institution which would allow employees to communicate their qualifications (e.g. a selected level of education) to employers and allow the latter to assess the unobservable characteristics of the employees on the basis of their behaviour. It happens that such solutions, albeit effective, allow for ineffective use of valuable resources.

Therefore, the existence of some unfavourable (ineffective) phenomena or behaviour on the market may be caused, not by the lack of balance, but by the asymmetry of information among market participants.