On quasi-public goods

As we all know (or should know) by now, public goods are goods that exhibit the qualities of non-rivalry and non-excludability while private goods are both rivalrous and excludable. When a good exhibits only one of these two traits, it is referred to as quasi-public good.

However, quasi-public goods can be further subdivided into two more categories, namely common goods and club goods.

When a good is excludable but non-rival, it is a club good. This means that while some people can be excluded from the consumption of the good, one person's consumption of it does not diminish another person's ability to do so (at least until the point of congestion is reached). Examples of this are computer software, cable television, movies in cinemas and access to patented or copyrighted ideas. Club goods are a form of natural monopoly (which, unfortunately, will not be discussed in this post).

When a good is rivalrous but non-excludable, it is a common good. While the consumption of such a good prevents another person from simultaneously doing so, there is largely no way of excluding people from consuming these goods. Such goods usually come in the form of renewable resources, e.g. fish, forests and water.

In the case of common goods, self-interested individuals often deplete resources to secure short-term gains without regard for the long-term consequences (e.g. over-fishing). This situation is known as the tragedy of the commons. When the consumption of these goods are regulated by a governmental entity for the sake of sustainability, the tragedy of the commons is circumvented. Common goods that are sustained in this manner are referred to as common-pool resources.



~Nicky(:

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