Exam 11: Public Goods and Common Resources

Some goods can be either common resources or public goods depending on

Mike Miller is the town manager of Medfield, a town with 50,000 residents. At a recent town meeting, several citizens proposed building a large public swimming pool in the center of town for all of the residents to enjoy. A survey of all 50,000 residents revealed that the pool would be worth $50 to each of them. Because the cost to build the swimming pool is only $1,000,000, Manager Miller arranges to have the pool built. Everyone in town enjoys the pool, but when Manager Miller asks for donations to pay for the pool, he only collects $250,000. Manager Miller soon realizes that

A city street is

Is national defense excludable? Is it rival in consumption? How do we classify national defense in terms of the four types of goods?

In a certain city, the government is considering acquiring some land and turning it into a park (without any fences or gates). In an attempt to determine the extent to which residents of the city would value the park, residents are asked to fill out a questionnaire. Which of the following is correct?

Consider a good for which the number of people who benefit from the good is large and the exclusion of any one those people is impossible. In this case, the market for this good will likely

Scenario 11-3 Consider the following goods: -a fish fillet served at a restaurant -fish in the ocean -exotic fish in a huge aquarium in a privately-owned building -Refer to Scenario 11-3. Which of these goods is the best example of a private good? Briefly explain.

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 99th unit of police protection in Safetyville?

Table 11-2 Consider a small town with only three families, the Greene family, the Brown family, and the Black family. The town does not currently have any streetlights so it is very dark at night. The three families are considering putting in streetlights on Main Street and are trying to determine how many lights to install. The table below shows each family's willingness to pay for each streetlight. -Refer to Table 11-2. Suppose the cost to install each streetlight is $600 and the families have agreed to split the cost of installing the streetlights equally. To maximize their own surplus, how many streetlights would the Brown's like the town to install?

Residents of Hong Kong are able to find restaurants that advertise a dish that contains grizzly bear paws. Since it is unlikely that grizzly bear paws are purchased from a private producer of animal paws, we can likely conclude that

The U.S. patent system

Figure 11-1 Rival in Consumption? Yes No Excludable? Yes No -Refer to Figure 11-1. The box labeled D represents what type of good?

One benefit of the patent system is that it encourages the production of technical knowledge.

Examples of goods that are excludable include

Because elephants roam freely in many countries in Africa, each individual African elephant poacher has

Under which of the following scenarios would a park be considered a common resource?

Which of the following statements is not correct?

Which of the following is not a public good?

A rather large city has only one fire station, two fire trucks, and four firefighters. Is fire protection in this city characterized by rivalry in consumption?

A view of a spectacular sunset along a private beach is an example of a