In This Chapter, Look For The Answers To These Questions:: Chapter 11 Public Goods and Common Resources

In this chapter, look for the answers to
these questions:
 What are public goods?
What are common resources?
Give examples of each.
 Why do markets generally fail to provide the
efficient amounts of these goods?
 How might the government improve market
outcomes in the case of public goods or common
resources?
CHAPTER 11 PUBLIC GOODS AND COMMON RESOURCES 1

Introduction
 We consume many goods without paying:
parks, national defense, clean air & water.
 When goods are free, the market forces that
normally allocate resources are absent.
 The private market may fail to provide the
socially efficient quantity of such goods.
 One of the Ten Principles from Chapter 1:
Governments can sometimes
improve market outcomes.

Important Characteristics of Goods
 A good is excludable if a person can be prevented
from using it.
• excludable: apartment
• not excludable: empty street, national defense
 A good is rival in consumption if one person’s
use of it diminishes others’ use.
• rival: apartment
• not rival: empty street

The Different Kinds of Goods
Private goods: excludable, rival in consumption
example: food
Public goods: not excludable, not rival
example: national defense
Common resources: rival but not excludable
example: fish in the ocean
Natural monopolies: excludable but not rival
example: cable TV

A C T I V E L E A R N I N G 1:
Categorizing roads
 A road is which of the four kinds of goods?
 Hint: The answer depends on whether the road
is congested or not, and whether it’s a toll road
or not. Consider the different cases.
5
Answers
 Rival in consumption? Only if congested.
 Excludable? Only if a toll road.
 Four possibilities
uncongested non-toll road: public good
uncongested toll road: natural monopoly
congested non-toll road: common resource
congested toll road: private good
6
The Different Kinds of Goods
 This chapter focuses on public goods and
common resources.
 For both, externalities arise because something
of value has no price attached to it.
 So, private decisions about consumption and
production can lead to an inefficient outcome.
 Public policy can potentially raise economic
well-being.

Public Goods
 Public goods are difficult for private markets to
provide because of the free-rider problem.
 Free rider: a person who receives the benefit of
a good but avoids paying for it
• If good is not excludable, people have incentive
to be free riders, because firms cannot prevent
non-payers from consuming the good.
 Result: The good is not produced, even if
buyers collectively value the good higher than
the cost of providing it.

Public Goods
 If the benefit of a public good exceeds the cost of
providing it, govt should provide the good and pay
for it with a tax on people who benefit.
 Problem: Measuring the benefit is usually difficult.
 Cost-benefit analysis: a study that compares
the costs and benefits of providing a public good
 Cost-benefit analyses are imprecise, so the
efficient provision of public goods is more difficult
than that of private goods.

Some Important Public Goods
 National defense
 Knowledge created through basic research

Common Resources
 Like public goods, common resources are not
excludable.
• cannot prevent free riders from using
• little incentive for firms to provide
• role for govt: seeing that they are provided
 Additional problem with common resources:
rival in consumption
• each person’s use reduces others’ ability
to use
• role for govt: ensuring they are not overused
The Tragedy of the Commons
 The tragedy is due to an externality:
Allowing one’s flock to graze on the common land
reduces its quality for other families.
 People neglect this external cost, resulting in
overuse of the land.

Policy options for common resources
 What could the townspeople
(or their government)
have done to prevent the tragedy?
 Try to think of two or three options.
13
Answers
 impose a corrective tax on the use of the land
to “internalize the externality”
 regulate use of the land (the “command-and-
control” approach)
 auction off permits allowing use of the land
 divide the land, sell lots to individual families
Each family will have incentive not to overgraze
its own land.
14
Policy Options to Prevent
Overconsumption of Common Resources
 regulate use of the resource
 impose a corrective tax to internalize the
externality
• example: hunting & fishing licenses,
entrance fees for congested national parks
 auction off permits allowing use of the resource
 if the resource is land, convert to a private good
by dividing and selling parcels to individuals

Some Important Common Resources
 Clean air and water
 Congested roads
 Fish, whales, and other wildlife

CONCLUSION
 Public goods tend to be under-provided, while
common resources tend to be over-consumed.
 These problems arise because property rights
are not well-established:
• Nobody owns the air, so no one can charge
polluters. Result: too much pollution.
• Nobody can charge people who benefit from
national defense. Result: too little defense.
 The govt can potentially solve these problems
with various policy options.

CHAPTER SUMMARY
 A good is excludable if someone can be prevented
from using it. A good is rival in consumption if one
person’s use reduces others’ ability to use the
same unit of the good.
 Markets work best for private goods, which are
excludable and rival in consumption. Markets do
not work well for other types of goods.

CHAPTER SUMMARY
 Public goods, such as national defense and
fundamental knowledge, are neither excludable
nor rival in consumption.
 Because people do not have to pay to use them,
they have an incentive to free ride, and firms have
no incentive to provide them.
 Therefore, the government provides public goods,
using cost-benefit analysis to determine how much
to provide.

CHAPTER SUMMARY
 Common resources are rival in consumption but
not excludable. Examples include common
grazing land, clean air, and congested roads.
 People can use common resources without
paying, so they tend to overuse them.
Therefore, governments try to limit the use of
common resources.

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In this chapter, look for the answers to

CHAPTER 11 PUBLIC GOODS AND COMMON RESOURCES 1

CHAPTER 11 PUBLIC GOODS AND COMMON RESOURCES 2

CHAPTER 11 PUBLIC GOODS AND COMMON RESOURCES 3

CHAPTER 11 PUBLIC GOODS AND COMMON RESOURCES 4

uncongested toll road: natural monopoly

congested non-toll road: common resource

congested toll road: private good

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CHAPTER 11 PUBLIC GOODS AND COMMON RESOURCES 12

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CHAPTER 11 PUBLIC GOODS AND COMMON RESOURCES 16

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