The Economic Way of Thinking 13th Edition by David Prychitko, Peter Boettke, Paul Heyne

Exercise 12

Parking space is sometimes made available on college campuses at a zero price even when parking space is quite scarce.
(a) What exactly does it mean that parking space is scarce? Does it mean that parking spaces are not available?
(b) How is scarce parking space rationed in the absence of parking fees?
(c) If a college charged all students who wanted to park on campus $200 for a yearly parking permit, would that fee effectively ration scarce parking space?
(d) Suppose the college placed parking meters along all the campus streets. How could these be used to ration scarce parking space effectively? Keep in mind that some parking spaces will be in much greater demand than others.