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Concept
Public good (economics)
Summary
In economics, a public good (also referred to as a social good or collective good) is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous. For such goods, users cannot be barred from accessing or using them for failing to pay for them. Also, use by one person neither prevents access of other people nor does it reduce availability to others. Therefore, the good can be used simultaneously by more than one person. This is in contrast to a common good, such as wild fish stocks in the ocean, which is non-excludable but rivalrous to a certain degree. If too many fish were harvested, the stocks would deplete, limiting the access of fish for others. A public good must be valuable to more than one user, otherwise, the fact that it can be used simultaneously by more than one person would be economically irrelevant.
Capital goods may be used to produce public goods or services that are "...typically provided on a large scale to many consumers." Unlike other types of economic goods, public goods are described as “non-rivalrous” or “non-exclusive,” and use by one person neither prevents access of other people nor does it reduce availability to others. Similarly, using capital goods to produce public goods may result in the creation of new capital goods. In some cases, public goods or services are considered "...insufficiently profitable to be provided by the private sector.... (and), in the absence of government provision, these goods or services would be produced in relatively small quantities or, perhaps, not at all."
Public goods include knowledge, official statistics, national security, common languages, law enforcement, public parks, free roads, television and radio broadcasts. Additionally, flood control systems, lighthouses, and street lighting are also common social goods. Collective goods that are spread all over the face of the earth may be referred to as global public goods. This is not limited to physical book literature, but also media, pictures and videos. For instance, knowledge is well shared globally.
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Ontological neighbourhood
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Free-rider problem
In the social sciences, the free-rider problem is a type of market failure that occurs when those who benefit from resources, public goods and common pool resources do not pay for them or under-pay. Examples of such goods are public roads or public libraries or services or other goods of a communal nature. Free riders are a problem for common pool resources because they may overuse it by not paying for the good (either directly through fees or tolls or indirectly through taxes).
Rivalry (economics)
In economics, a good is said to be rivalrous or a rival if its consumption by one consumer prevents simultaneous consumption by other consumers, or if consumption by one party reduces the ability of another party to consume it. A good is considered non-rivalrous or non-rival if, for any level of production, the cost of providing it to a marginal (additional) individual is zero. A good is "anti-rivalrous" and "inclusive" if each person benefits more when other people consume it.
Common-pool resource
In economics, a common-pool resource (CPR) is a type of good consisting of a natural or human-made resource system (e.g. an irrigation system or fishing grounds), whose size or characteristics makes it costly, but not impossible, to exclude potential beneficiaries from obtaining benefits from its use. Unlike pure public goods, common pool resources face problems of congestion or overuse, because they are subtractable. A common-pool resource typically consists of a core resource (e.g.