Moral hazard refers to situation when one side of the market cannot observe the action of other side of the market. For example, the creditors might not be able to observe whether or not their debtors are investing their money in projects as specified by the debtors at the time of taking loans. Thus, moral hazard is the problem of hidden action. Adverse selection refers to the situation when one side of the market cannot observe the type or quality of goods on the other side of the market. This is a problem of hidden information.
The problem of moral hazard takes place after the transaction has been done while the problem of adverse selection occurs before the transaction.
Equilibrium in the market affected by adverse selection problem will involve too little trade taking place because of the externality between good and bad types while in the market affected by moral hazard problem, the sellers will provide lesser than what they are willing to provide because it will change the incentive of the buyers. For example: providing partial insurance against thefts will give incentive to the asset owners to protect their asset because if theft happens, some degree of loss will be borne by the asset owner too.
