Exam 11: Public Goods and Common Resources

After a recent spike in violent crime, the local police department wants to spend $550,000 on a new crime fighting initiative. If a human life is worth $9 million, the crime fighting initiative is worth the cost if it reduces the risk of someone dying from crime by at least

Table 11-5 A small island off the coast of Cape Cod contains two restaurants and two retail stores. Tourists need to take a ferry boat to reach the island, but with a recent slowdown in the economy, tourists are less willing to pay for the boat ride to visit the island. The owners of the restaurants and stores on the island - Restaurants 1 and 2, and Stores A and B - think that if tourists could ride the ferry for free, they would be happy to visit the island, eat and shop. The business owners are considering contributing to a pool of money that will be used to pay for roundtrip ferry service each day. The table represents their willingness to pay, that is, the maximum amount that each business owner is willing to contribute, per day, to pay for each ferry trip. -Refer to Table 11-5. Suppose the cost to run the ferry for each roundtrip is $500. How many ferry trips should there be to maximize the total surplus of the four business owners?

Table 11-3 This table describes the police protection demands for three equal sized groups of people in Safetyville. The second, third, and fourth columns show the number of person-hours of police protection per day that a group will demand for a given price (the first column). -Refer to Table 11-3. What is the value of the 39^th unit of police protection in Safetyville?

Table 11-5 A small island off the coast of Cape Cod contains two restaurants and two retail stores. Tourists need to take a ferry boat to reach the island, but with a recent slowdown in the economy, tourists are less willing to pay for the boat ride to visit the island. The owners of the restaurants and stores on the island - Restaurants 1 and 2, and Stores A and B - think that if tourists could ride the ferry for free, they would be happy to visit the island, eat and shop. The business owners are considering contributing to a pool of money that will be used to pay for roundtrip ferry service each day. The table represents their willingness to pay, that is, the maximum amount that each business owner is willing to contribute, per day, to pay for each ferry trip. -Refer to Table 11-5. Suppose the cost to run the ferry for each roundtrip is $750. Then total surplus for the 4 business owners is

Congressman Smith and Congresswoman Johnson both consider themselves advocates for the national parks and are introducing different bills designed to benefit the parks. Congressman Smith's bill calls for an increase in the entrance fees. Congresswoman Johnson's bill calls for a decrease in the entrance fees. Which of the bills would be more effective at ensuring the quality of the national parks?

Table 11-1 Consider the town of Springfield with only three residents, Sophia, Amber, and Cedric. The three residents are trying to determine how large, in acres, they should build the public park. The table below shows each resident's willingness to pay for each acre of the park. -Refer to Table 11-1. Suppose the cost to build the park is $9 per acre. How large should the park be to maximize total surplus from the park in Springfield?

Aristotle writes, "What is common to many is taken least care of, for all men have greater regard for what is their own than for what they possess in common with others." In this statement, Aristotle is referring to the free-rider problem that occurs when a person receives the benefit of a good without paying for it.

Which of the following is correct regarding road tolls as a way to reduce traffic?

A good that is excludable but not rival is known as a club good.

Private goods are both

Nine friends who love the beach decide to pool their financial resources and equally share the cost of a one-week house rental on Nantucket. Suppose that the beach outside of the house becomes more congested when the nine additional people join the other beachgoers. Which of the following statements is not correct?

Consider a public road that anyone is allowed to drive on. If the road is often congested, the road would be considered a

Goods that are rival in consumption and excludable would be considered

Table 11-6 Consider the city of Widgetapolis with only four residents, John, James, Mary, and Lydia. The four residents are trying to determine how many hours to spend in cleaning up the public lake. The table below shows each resident's willingness to pay for each hour of cleaning. ​ ​ -Refer to Table 11-6. Suppose the cost to clean the lake is $40 per hour and that the residents have agreed to split the cost of cleaning the lake equally. To maximize his own surplus, how many hours of cleaning would John like to have completed?

Government intervention cannot improve the allocation of resources for goods that do not have prices attached to them.

Four friends decide to meet at a Chinese restaurant for dinner. They decide that each person will order an item off the menu, and they will share all dishes. They will split the cost of the final bill evenly among each of the people at the table. A Tragedy of the Commons problem is likely for each of the following reasons except

The Ogallala aquifer is a large underground pool of fresh water under several western states in the United States. Any farmer with land above the aquifer can at present pump water out of it. We might expect that

If Dave and Jesse are the only two fishermen in town and neither is bothered by the other's fishing, the lake they fish in is not a common resource.

The national defense of the United States is not rival because

A toll collected from each car traveling during rush hour on a congested road is an effective correction to the Tragedy of the Commons for all of the following reasons except the toll provides an incentive for commuters to