Common good (economics)

For the general term, see Common good.
For other uses, see Common Good (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Public good (economics).
Wild fish are an example of common goods. They are non-excludable, as it is impossible to prevent people from catching fish. They are, however, rivalrous, as the same fish cannot be caught more than once.

Common goods (also called common-pool resources[1]) are defined in economics as goods that are rivalrous and non-excludable. Thus, they constitute one of the four main types based on the criteria:

  • whether the consumption of a good by one person precludes its consumption by another person (rivalrousness)
  • whether it is possible to prevent people (consumers) who have not paid for it from having access to it (excludability)

As common goods are accessible by everybody, they are at risk of being subject to overexploitation which leads to diminished availability if people act to serve their own self-interests.

  1. ^ Mankiw, N.Gregory (2015). Principles of Economics (7th ed.). Cengage Learning, Inc. pp. 215–229. ISBN 978-1-285-16587-5.