Questions tagged [public-goods]

In economics, a public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous in that individuals cannot be effectively excluded from use and where use by one individual does not reduce availability to others.

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Non rival goods

Hello, I'd like to know why c) is false here because based on my understanding it is also correct...
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What are examples of public goods where marginal individual contributions tend to zero?

I am looking for examples of public goods that are such that the marginal contribution of an individual increases their provision by an amount that is close to zero. For instance, climate change is ...
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The present value of exterminating the human race in 200 years: Can I afford it? Can you?

Exterminating the human race in 200 years ttime: Can I afford it? Can you? Suppose I am writing a paper trying to asses whether some large near-term capital investment with benefits spread out over a ...
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How does the Austrian school address the free-rider problem for public goods like national defense?

I've been reading a little about the Austrian school and a lot of their conclusions and insights looked intuitive and sensible until I came to their view of government spending for "public goods&...
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Low fees government provided elderly nursing houses- private or public goods or quasi public?

I am really confused on how to classify low fees government nursing home services that are provided to elderly people. Is it public good or private good or quasi-public? My reasoning is that it is a ...
CREATIVITY Unleashed's user avatar
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Efficiency Criteria to provide a public good?

Suppose there are two consumers in the whole economy. If the cost of a public good is 100, and the maximum willingness to pay for a public good for consumers 1 and 2 is 80 and 25, would it still be ...
Casio's user avatar
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Is GDP biased against public goods?

There was recent argument on Economics Twitter, due to some guy claiming that GDP is inherently capitalist and such and such, because if goods and services such as healthcare is converted from public ...
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Is climate change an economic question?

The assumption that the Keeling Curve can be approximated with a function $$k=A+B\cdot e^{\alpha t}$$ leads to a solution with $A=258.6$, $B=4,243\cdot 10^{-13}$ and $\alpha=0.0166$ with a high ...
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Which parts of health care can be considered market failures?

The justification for public health care subsidies often involves declaring the health care sector to have market failures, for example infectious diseases being a public good and the customer having ...
Philip Meyer's user avatar
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Is a smartphone app(Non premium or subscribed service like Netflix) a public good?

A smartphone app that provides users with information on surf conditions at their location. (“Surf conditions” refers to information on wind, waves, and ocean tides that is useful for surfers). For ...
Michael Handleman's user avatar
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Are there any analysis of what is the net benefit of NASA program to US economy?

I am looking for some study that tries to calculate whether the NASA program on a net basis benefits the US economy. The program is very expensive, but it generates lots of patents, research, jobs and ...
Lorenzo Pozzi's user avatar
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How do economists explain why people contribute to Wikipedia?

What incentives do contributors have? I believe they earn no money. And usually, they earn no reputation either, because most of the contributions are anonymous. I believe this is a public goods game. ...
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What are concrete values of public goods?

Are there any good studies on what are estimated values of public goods? For example, suppose a public library, bridge, school, or lighthouse is a public good, what is the value per person for these ...
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If public roads are public goods, in what way are they non-rivalrous?

I get why, say, the military is a public good, but I don't get why public roads are public goods, since they can't be non-rivalrous, given that at any time only a subset of the population can actually ...
Atonal's user avatar
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Simple General Equilibrium Model of Public Goods: Intuition?

We assume a two person economy, denoted by person A and B. Good y is an ordinary private good, and each person begins with an allocation of this good given by $ y^{A*} $ & $ y^{B*} $ respectively. ...
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utility from providing public good as explained in Hindriks textbook

I think I understood the highlighted part: basically, by increasing $g^1$ my utility increases because more public good is being provided but at the same time it decreases because I have less money to ...
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nash equilibrium public good - is this correct? [closed]

Two players, 1 and 2, simultaneously choose their consumption of a public good. Given the consumption choices, g1 and g2, player 1 derives a marginal benefit of MB1 = 10 - (g1 + g2), while player 2's ...
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Public Bads and Non-Excludability

The term "public bad" is sometimes used for "goods" which, like public goods, are non-excludable and non-rival, but which tend to lower rather than raise welfare. Air pollution is an example. For a ...
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(Microeconomics) How to classify Public Goods and Common Resources in Externalities?

In Microeconomics there are 4 types of externalities - Positive Consumption Externality, Positive Production Externality, Negative Consumption Externality, and Negative Production Externality. And ...
Robin's user avatar
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Pareto Efficient level of Public Good

As part of self study towards an entrance exam, I am solving the following question. There are two consumers in the economy and two goods, one private and one public. The utilities of the consumers ...
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How is it decided whether a societal need should be met by using a public project or private enterprise?

I know this is a large question, so I'm looking for a broad, general understanding only. Are there any principles using which it may be decided to meet a societal need using a public project rather ...
Joebevo's user avatar
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Are social goods and public goods the same thing?

I am confused as to they are the same or different?
Siddharth Singh's user avatar
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Why is Walras equilibrium inefficient when we are dealing with public goods?

I know that when we have public goods we have that: $$MRT = MRS_a + MRS_b$$ Though I fail to understand why does this makes Walras equilibrium inefficient. Thank you very much for your help!
Fozoro's user avatar
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Nash equilibrium - mistake in proof of paper?

I have a question regarding the proof of Proposition 1 in Besley and Ghatak (2007) in Appendix A of their paper. It is a quite highly cited paper but I believe there is a mistake in the proof of their ...
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Can the internet be characterized as a public utility?

The idea of what a public utility is, economically, rather than just legally is not a new point of discussion. Philosophers like John Stuart Mill argued for the public provision of water and gas, ...
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How do we determine if wealth will be created or destroyed (and how much) when we want to provide (quasi)public goods?

It seems quite simple under framework of free market, when there are no taxes or subsidies,price celling or price floors, etc, that can mess up the market: if there is profit (or will be, according to ...
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Calculate power for multiple rounds of public goods experiment

I would like to calculate/simulate the a-priori necessary sample size for a repeated public goods experiment. $N$ Participants play $R$ rounds of a public goods game (linear, voluntary contribution ...
Hendrik's user avatar
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Aggregating in a Continuum

I am working with the following Economic model of labour and consumption decisions: I have a population whose mass is normalized to one of consumers. They derive utility from consumption $c$,...
Weierstraß Ramirez's user avatar
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1 answer
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Is a hyperlink a kind of informational public good?

Links analysis algorithms on the web take the incoming links to a webpage as a sign of its popularity. Given this, can we consider web hyperlinks, in aggregate, as a kind of public good? I am curious ...
Joebevo's user avatar
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Free rider problem in game theory

Suppose a town is building a bridge, and it costs $B$. There are $n$ villagers. Each village's valuation of the bridge is private information, $v_i$. It is common knowledge that this valuation is ...
Frank Swanton's user avatar
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Economic valuation of green spaces using GIS

I was wondering if there are any standard methods that are employed to obtain insight of the economic value of tree cover in a particular area. I assumed using negative difference vegetation index ...
Chimango Chisuwo's user avatar
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Asymmetric Public Goods Game Reference request

I am doing a literature search and wondering if anyone has any good references on something related to the following topic: a one shot public goods game with asymmetric costs and benefits. We can ...
Dan Neal's user avatar
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Pigouvian subsidies for non-linear marginal external benefits

Suppose an agent is choosing how much $x$ to consume and $p_x=200$. If the agent's marginal private benefit is $MPB(x)=300/x$ and $x$ takes only integer values, then he will choose to purchase just ...
Shane's user avatar
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Public Goods - Voluntary provision

I am currently reading the book "Microeconomics: Principles and Analysis" by Cowell (2006), page 452-453. e have a two-commodity world, in which there are ${n_h}$ agents (households): commodity 1 is a ...
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Why two goods are of different types of Cross Elasticity if we swap them in formula?

I am using this formula for calculating Cross elasticity of demand: $ E_{XY}^D = \Large\frac{(Q_2^X - Q_1^X)(P_2^Y + P_1^Y)}{(Q_2^X + Q_1^X)(P_2^Y - P_1^Y)} $ If $E_{XY}^D$ > 0 Then goods X and Y ...
Erba Aitbayev's user avatar
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About Lindahl equilibrium and Pareto Optimality

Let an economy with 20 consumers, one private good $x_2$ and one public good $x_1$. The public good is produced using the private good as input with the following technology $x_1=g(z)=z^{1/2}$, where $...
Marcos Fabian C's user avatar
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5 answers
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Why are there fewer high schools than elementary schools?

In nearly every public school district in the U.S., one can observe the following pattern: There are fewer middle schools than elementary schools. And there are fewer high schools than middle schools. ...
FreeMarketUnicorn's user avatar
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Why is a fire service considered to be a non-rival service, while a highway is considered to be a rival good?

We consider highways to be an example of an impure private good because while it is non-excludable, it is a rival good. That is, another person's consumption (usage) of the highway affects my usage of ...
WorldGov's user avatar
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Pareto efficient quantity of public good (quasi-linear preferences)

I am doing a question on finding the Pareto efficient quantity of a public good. Instead of using the condition $\sum MRS_i = c'(G)$ where $c(G)$ denotes the cost of the public good, it asks you to ...
hk39's user avatar
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Does the government have a role to play in certifying people's abilities for the labor market?

The nature of information often makes it look like a public good. Is this the case for certification of peoples abilities? Is there a role the government could play in certifying people's abilities? ...
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1 vote
1 answer
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Are all fixed capital public goods?

fixed capital: any kind of real or physical capital (fixed asset) that is not used up in the production of a product public goods: goods that are non-rival and non-excludable in consumption Both of ...
Charlotte's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
584 views

Is information technology going to turn most "common goods" into private goods?

Common goods, (not public) are so because they are non-excludable and rival. Often this reflects the impracticality of excluding some users, rather than an absolute impossibility. For example, a park ...
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