Reducing Information Asymmetries and Public System of Accreditation of False Exclusion Necessary Complementarity

Two relatively overlapping trends can be observed currently in Chile: one that aims a, reducing information asymmetries among institutions and their users, and another that aims at establishing a public accreditation system. Both look for ensuring quality in the supply of higher education and easing decision making of youngsters and their families. This paper works out two proposals that would lead to reducing information asymmetries. The fist one, is an agreement among the universities and the media as well, to establish a 'codebook of style' that would allow participants to share the same meanings for different concepts thus ensuring truthfulness and adequate presentation of information. The second one, is the promotion of the auditing propensity of information given by the universities and of methodologies used by the media. However, the authors hold the view that the reduction of information asymmetries is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to ensure quality and improve decisions by the young and their families. As information may exceed the capacity for analysis available to the young and their families, and as they are not the only stakeholders, it may be convenient to implement a public accreditation system that. far from being an excluding alternative, could be a supplementary factor for strategies to reduce information asymmetries. Adapted from the source document.