"Perfect information" assumes that prices and product quality is known to all consumers and producers. The idea of "imperfect information" (most commonly called "information asymmetry)" has many ramifications for markets. The most important one concerning shock therapy is international trade and financial liberalisation. Because international banks possess better information about other international firms than they do about local firms in a country (and local banks possess better information about other local firms), liberalisation of trade and finance never leads to an even playing field for local firms if international investment is high. Hernando de Soto Polar also notes that in conjunction with imperfect property rights, local firms may not be able to access foreign capital when borrowing against their own capital, which may have imperfect property rights (his so-called "dead capital"), while local lenders know more about the conditions under which something is owned and can be borrowed against.