GOV 120 Lecture Notes - Lecture 32: Free Rider Problem, Aarp, Public Good
Document Summary
Role of public good as non-excludable and non-rivalrous. Non-excludable: it is costly to exclude people who do not work for the public. Can"t tell osama bin laden to target one individual person who did not good. agree with bush. Non-rivalrous: the public good does not put consumers at odds with one another. My use of a good does not mean you have less ability to use the same good. Citizens complain about the president/foreign policy/etc. but they believe others will rally around their concerns, and therefore do not pull all of their time/money into fixing the issue. Provision of public goods subject to free riding. The collective action problem in foreign policy. Societal attempts to influence foreign policy are subject to free rider problem. Difficult to mobilize sufficient societal support to influence foreign policy unless you reply on a group that has already solved collective action problem. The organizational costs to changing foreign policy: the difficulties of free trade.
