[cimmanom]

That's a far more limited claim. There's a very common claim that "markets are efficient". Extending to all markets all the time. Explaining why market based solutions are the best way to provide health care and education and other (arguably common) goods.

But many markets (the labor market, the health care market, etc) work in such a way that it's ridiculous to assume that most participants know all public and private information all or most of the time.

[stult]

The EMH is specific to asset markets. So stocks and bonds basically. No (respectable, well-known) economist has ever argued that all markets are always efficient.

Also what people mean when they say markets are efficient in other contexts means something very different. The EMH specifically describes how quickly and what kinds of information get incorporated into asset prices. It doesn't make claims about how markets organize production or optimize utility without centralized direction, which is usually what people mean when they say free markets are efficient.

I think a lot of confusion has arisen from the very general-sounding name of the hypothesis which does not reflect its relatively narrow claims. Not that I buy the EMH (no pun intended), but that's a different story.

[zmk_]

EMH that this paper refers to is about financial markets. In other areas of econ, no one is claiming that markets are efficient, in fact most of econ talks about "first best", "second best", "losses in efficiency", etc.