From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@calweb.com)
Date: Tue Feb 18 1997 - 18:10:44 MST
> Varian, "Microeconomic Analysis" was the standard grad econ text until
> recently. In the 3rd edition p. 414, starting the chapter titled
> "public goods", it gives this definition:
>
> "We say that a good is excludable if people can be excluded from
> consuming it. We say that a good is nonrival if one person's
> consumption does not reduce the amount available to other consumers. ...
> Goods that are not excludable and are nonrival are called public goods."
Interesting. That is a more useful definition than the one I'm used
to, and if it is indeed a standard text, I should start using it. It
doesn't quite fit some old examples of public good, though, like law
enforcement, because they are not nonrival. Does this book have a
specific term for "commons", i.e., non-excludable, rival goods?
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html>
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