Public Goods
Public goods, or collective consumption goods, exhibit two properties; non-rivalry and non-excludability. Something is non-rivaled if one person's consumption of it does not deprive another person, (to a point) a firework display is non-rivaled - since one person watching a firework display does not prevent another person from doing so. Something is non-excludable if its use is cannot be limited to a certain group of people. Again, since one cannot prevent people from viewing a firework display it is non-excludable.
Read more about this topic: Public Economics
Famous quotes containing the words public and/or goods:
“Men and women approaching retirement age should be recycled for public service work, and their companies should foot the bill. We can no longer afford to scrap-pile people.”
—Maggie Kuhn (b. 1905)
“This avidity alone, of acquiring goods and possessions for ourselves and our nearest friends, is insatiable, perpetual, universal, and directly destructive of society.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)