Principles of Microeconomics / Unit 12 MIC 1110 short lesson, about 20 seconds
What a Public Good Is Not
Captions available
The idea
Not every tax-funded good is a public good, and not every positive externality is one. Education has large spillovers, yet a private school can charge for it; a patent makes an invention excludable for a time.
In practice
Mail delivery is a private good a government agency happens to sell.
Where people slip
The definition is about the good's properties, not who provides it.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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