the.com/public good
Nobody can be stopped from enjoying it, so everybody hopes someone else pays for it.
means A good or service that's non-excludable and non-rivalrous — once it exists, no one can be kept from using it, and one person's use doesn't reduce another's.
from Rooted in Latin publicus (of the people), the term became an economics fixture through 20th-century welfare economics, especially Paul Samuelson's 1954 paper formalizing 'collective consumption goods' — things like lighthouses and clean air that markets struggle to price because nobody can be billed at the door.
- textbook traits
- non-excludable and non-rival, unlike your gym membership
- classic examples
- lighthouses, clean air, national defense, street lights
- the catch
- free riders enjoy it without funding it
- economist's fix
- usually funded by taxes, not markets