Chapter 11: Public Goods and Common Resources

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Okay, let's unpack this.

You know that old saying, the best things in life are free.

We often think of, you know, beautiful sunsets, a walk in the park, maybe a lively community parade.

These things feel free, right?

They certainly seem that way on the surface.

But what if I told you that from an economic perspective, these free goods pose some of the most, well, complex challenges for our autonomy?

It's absolutely true.

While those experiences might not come with a price tag, they present a special challenge for economic analysis.

You see, most things in our economy are allocated through markets.

Right, where prices are the signals.

Exactly.

Prices act as those powerful signals guiding us.

But when goods come without a price, those market forces simply aren't there to guide us towards an efficient allocation of resources.

It's a fundamental puzzle.

Absolutely.

So for this deep dive, we're going to tackle exactly that.

Goods without market prices.

Our mission really is to explore why markets often fail to provide these goods efficiently.

And perhaps more importantly, how governments can often do step in to potentially improve outcomes for everyone.

Yeah.

We'll be drawing all our insights from a chapter on public goods and common resources from N.

Gregory Mankiw's Principles of Microeconomics.

And to truly understand how we get here, we really need to begin with two fundamental characteristics that economists use to categorize every single good in an economy.

Okay.

This raises an important question, though.

What makes a good, well, a good in economic terms beyond just, you know, wanting it?

Exactly.

Let's start with the first characteristic.

Excludability.

Now, this is about whether people can actually be prevented from using a good.

Could you break that down for us a bit, maybe with an example?

Certainly.

So a good is excludable if it's possible to stop someone from using it.

Pretty straightforward.

If it's impossible to prevent someone from using it, then it's not excludable.

Okay.

Think about an ice cream cone.

You don't pay for it.

You don't get one.

Simple.

That's excludable.

Right.

But contrast that with, say, a tornado siren.

Once that thing starts blaring,

everyone in its range hears the warning.

It doesn't matter if they paid for the siren service.

You can't really exclude anyone from hearing that sound.

That's incredibly clear.

So, excludability is about who gets to use it.

What's the second characteristic, then?

The second one is rivalry and consumption.

This focuses more on whether one person's use of a good impacts another person's ability to use the same unit of that good.

Ah, okay.

Is there enough to go around?

Sort of.

More precisely, a good is rival in consumption if one person's use means there's less or, you know, none for someone else.

If one person's use doesn't diminish another's enjoyment or use, it's non -rival.

So if I eat that ice cream cone, no one else can eat that specific cone.

It's gone.

That sounds very rival.

Precisely.

It's a classic rival good.

But your enjoyment of, say, national defense doesn't stop anyone else in the country from enjoying that same protection.

That's a non -rival good.

My safety doesn't diminish yours one bit.

Got it.

So these two characteristics, excludability and rivalry, are essentially our economic lens for sorting every single good we encounter.

Exactly.

And by combining excludability and rivalry, we can categorize all goods into four distinct types.

You can almost imagine a simple two -by -two chart in your mind.

Okay, yeah.

Excludable, non -excludable on one side, rival, non -rival on the other.

Perfect.

So let's fill it in.

What's in that top left quadrant, both excludable and rival?

That sounds like most things I buy.

It is.

That's where you find private goods.

These are your everyday items.

Excludable and rival in consumption.

You can be stopped from using them if you don't pay.

And your use means someone else can't use that exact unit.

Like the ice cream cone, clothes.

Exactly.

Ice cream cones, shoes, even a congested toll road fits here.

You pay to get on, that's excludable, but your car adds to the traffic, making it rival for others.

Most goods fall here, and private markets are usually pretty good, pretty efficient at allocating them.

That makes sense.

So where do those free things we started with fall?

The ones that are neither excludable nor rival?

Ah, those are your public goods.

Basically impossible to prevent people from using them, and one person's use doesn't diminish in others.

Like the tornado siren.

The tornado siren fits perfectly.

National defense, too.

Or think about an uncongested non -toll road.

My driving doesn't slow you down, and no one can really stop you from using it.

This is the category where, well, market failure often rears its head.

Okay, two more boxes.

What about goods that are rival but not excludable?

So anyone can use them, but there is a limit.

Those are known as common resources.

They're often available free of charge, but, and this is the key part, your use reduces what's available for others.

Examples.

Classic examples are fish in the ocean, the environment itself, or think about a congested non -toll road.

Anyone can drive on it, so it's not excludable, but when too many people do, everyone slows down.

That's rivalry.

These pose really significant challenges for market efficiency, often leading to overuse.

Definitely get back to that.

All right, and the last box.

Excludable but not rival.

We call those club goods.

You can be prevented from using them if you don't pay, maybe a subscription or a fee, but once you have access, your use doesn't really diminish others' ability to use them.

Satellite TV.

Satellite TV is a perfect example.

You pay the subscription, that's excludable, but you watching a channel doesn't stop me from watching the same one.

Fire protection in some towns could work like this, too.

How so?

If you don't pay your fire district fees, they might not show up if your house catches fire.

Excludable.

But them putting out one fire doesn't generally prevent them from fighting another simultaneously or soon after non -rival, assuming they have the capacity.

Uncongested toll roads also fit here.

Pay the toll, get access, but if it's empty, you're not bothering anyone.

Interesting.

They're kind of like a private service, but using it doesn't use it up for others.

Exactly.

These are actually a type of natural monopoly, which is a whole other fascinating topic for maybe another deep dive.

Okay, so this framework, Private Public Common Club, is super helpful for understanding why certain goods cause market headaches.

It really is.

And it's worth remembering, like you said, these categories aren't always perfectly rigid.

The lines can get fuzzy sometimes.

Oh, absolutely.

Technology or policy can change things.

Fish in the ocean might seem non -excludable, but maybe a massive coast guard with drones could change that, you know?

True.

But for our purposes today, this structure is key.

We're really going to zoom in on public goods and common resources.

That's where the most interesting market failures tend to happen.

Definitely.

Let's start with public goods, neither excludable nor rival.

The fundamental issue that often stops private markets from providing them efficiently is something called the free rider problem.

The free rider problem, that phrase sounds instantly familiar.

I think we all know what that feels like.

Can you give us an example that really brings it home?

Yeah, it's pretty intuitive.

Let's imagine a town, call it small town USA, say there are 500 residents and they all just love fireworks.

Big 4th of July fans.

Let's say each person values seeing a big fireworks display at $10.

So multiply that out.

The total community benefit from having a show is $5 ,000.

$5 ,000 in collective happiness.

What's the cost?

And let's say the cost to actually hire a company and put on this dazzling display is just $1 ,000.

So wait, $5 ,000 in benefit, $1 ,000 in cost.

From a societal view, it's a slam dunk.

They should have the fireworks.

It makes everyone better off overall.

Exactly.

Socially efficient.

No question.

But what a private company ever actually do it.

Ah, that's the free rider problem in action.

Imagine an entrepreneur, let's call her Zoe.

If Zoe tries to sell tickets for say $5 each, people would just watch from their backyards or the park down the street for free.

Precisely.

A free rider is just someone who gets the benefit of a good but doesn't pay for it.

Because fireworks are non -excludable.

You can't really stop people from seeing them once they're up in the sky.

People have a really strong incentive to free ride.

So Zoe looks at this and thinks.

Zoe looks at this and sees no way to make a profit.

She can't force everyone who watches to buy a ticket.

So she makes the privately rational decision not to put on the display.

Even though it would have made the town $4 ,000 better off overall.

That's a market failure.

A classic market failure.

It stems from a positive externality.

Zoe's fireworks would benefit lots of people, but she can't capture that value financially.

It's a real dilemma.

So if the private market fails, what's the usual fix for Small Town to get its fireworks?

How do communities typically handle this free rider issue for things everyone wants but nobody wants to pay for individually?

Well, this is where government often steps in.

In Small Town, the local government could decide to provide the fireworks display itself.

Using tax money.

Exactly.

They could raise everyone's taxes by just a small amount, say $2 per person.

With 500 residents, that brings in exactly $1 ,000.

Enough to cover the cost.

Right.

So everyone pays $2 in tax, gets to enjoy the fireworks display they value at $10, and they end up $8 better off.

$10 value minus $2 tax.

Ah, so government intervention actually improves the outcome here.

Potentially, yes.

The key takeaway is simple.

Because public goods are non -excludable, the free rider problem stops private markets.

Government can often fix this by providing the good and funding it with taxes, potentially making everyone better off.

Okay, fireworks are a fun example, but what about some of the really crucial public goods that underpin society?

One of the most classic and maybe the clearest examples is national defense.

Right.

Can't really exclude anyone from that.

Exactly.

Once a country is defended, you simply can't pick and choose which citizens get

And one person being safe doesn't make anyone else less safe.

It's the perfect, non -excludable, non -rival good.

And it's expensive.

Very.

In 2017, for example, the U .S.

spent something like $744 billion on defense.

That works out to about $2 ,284 per person.

What's interesting is how widely economists agree on this, even those who generally argue for smaller government.

They usually concede that national defense is a core function of the state.

That level of consensus is telling.

What about something less tangible like knowledge?

Can knowledge be a public good?

That's a great question.

And the answer is it depends on the type of knowledge.

Basic research or general scientific knowledge is often considered a vital public good.

Like discovering gravity or Exactly.

Fundamental mathematical theorems, core scientific principles.

Now contrast that with specific technological knowledge, like the secret formula for Coke or the design for a new microchip.

That can often be patented or kept secret, making it excludable, at least for a while.

But basic knowledge?

Basic knowledge, once it's discovered and shared, enters the public domain, it becomes non -excludable.

And my understanding of calculus doesn't prevent you from understanding it too, so it's non -rival.

So who pays for basic research then, if companies can just free ride?

That's the problem.

Profit -seeking firms don't have a strong incentive to invest heavily in basic research.

Why spend millions discovering a new theorem if your competitors can immediately use it for free?

Right.

So that's why government agencies like the National Institutes of Health, NIH, or the National Science Foundation, NSF, step in.

They subsidize basic research.

Now it's really hard to measure the full benefits or figure out the absolute optimal level of funding.

Sure.

How do you measure the value of discovering a new theorem?

Exactly.

But it's widely accepted as crucial for long -term economic progress and innovation.

I can definitely see the free rider issue there.

Are there any other, maybe less obvious public goods that economists talk about?

Well, it's a bit more debated, but some economists argue that even fighting poverty can be viewed through the lens of a public good.

How does that argument work?

The idea is, if most people in a society prefer to live in a place without widespread extreme poverty, maybe they feel better, maybe it reduces crime, whatever the reason, then the elimination of poverty has public good characteristics.

Okay.

Non -rival.

Arguably non -rival, yes.

My enjoyment of living in a less impoverished society doesn't reduce your enjoyment.

And non -excludable.

And arguably non -excludable, too.

Once poverty is reduced, you can't really stop anyone from appreciating that societal improvement or benefiting from its effects.

So the free rider problem applies to private charity.

That's the argument.

People might think, well, I hope poverty gets reduced, but maybe other people will donate, so I don't have to chip in as much.

Free riding on others' generosity.

So government steps in again.

Right.

Government programs like TNF, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, SNAP, food stamps, housing assistance, funded by taxes.

The argument is that these can actually make both the poor better off, obviously, but also the taxpaying non -poor better off if they genuinely value living in a society with less poverty.

You know, speaking of public goods, I was really struck by that historical detail about lighthouses.

They seem like the absolute textbook example can't stop ships from seeing the light.

One ship seeing it doesn't block others.

For centuries, they were the go -to example for economists explaining public goods.

Yeah, seems like a perfect setup for the free rider problem.

So governments usually operate them.

But you mentioned a twist from 19th century England.

Some private ones existed.

It's a fascinating historical counterpoint.

Despite the theory, some private lighthouses did operate successfully in 19th century England.

The puzzle was, how did they overcome the free rider problem?

How did they make ships pay?

How did they?

They didn't charge the ships directly.

Instead, they charged the owner of the port where the ships were headed.

Clever.

Yeah.

If the port owner didn't pay the lighthouse fee, the lighthouse keeper would simply turn off the light.

And ships, knowing the light was off, would avoid that port entirely.

So the port owner had a very strong incentive to pay.

Absolutely.

In that specific context where there was a clear, identifiable beneficiary, the port owner who could be excluded from the benefit, ships arriving safely, the lighthouse actually functioned more like a private good.

That's a great illustration of how context matters.

Deciding if something is a public good isn't always black and white.

It depends on who benefits and whether you can actually exclude them.

Exactly.

The lines can definitely blur.

Okay.

But let's say a government does decide, yes, this is a public good.

We need to provide it.

What's the next big challenge?

It's not enough just to decide to provide it, right?

No, absolutely not.

The next huge hurdle is figuring out what kind and how much to provide.

This requires what economists call cost -benefit analysis.

Comparing the costs and the benefits to society.

Sounds simple enough.

It sounds simple, but it's incredibly difficult in practice for public goods.

The immense challenge is that, unlike private goods, public goods don't have a market price tag telling you what they're worth to people.

Right.

No checkout scanner for national defense.

Exactly.

So how do you quantify the benefits accurately?

If you just survey people, how much do you value a new highway?

People who expect to use it might exaggerate the benefits, hoping to get it built.

People who might be harmed by it, maybe noise pollution, might exaggerate the costs.

The signals are missing.

The market signals are missing.

For private goods, prices reveal what buyers are willing to pay, their value, and what it costs sellers to produce.

That price mechanism usually leads to efficient allocation.

For public goods, analysts doing cost -benefit studies lack these signals.

Their estimates are, as Manki puts it, rough approximations at best.

So when we get into cost -benefit for public projects, especially things like safety measures and new traffic light, maybe we inevitably bump up against that really tough question.

How do economists even start to put a value on a human life?

Isn't life priceless?

It's probably the most difficult and often controversial part of cost -benefit analysis.

And you're right, we often say life is priceless.

But we took that literally for policy.

We'd do everything possible to prevent any risk, regardless of cost.

Exactly.

We'd put traffic lights at every single intersection,

mandate only the absolute safest cars, ban skiing.

It leads to nonsensical outcomes because resources are scarce.

In reality, both as a society and as individuals, we constantly make trade -offs involving risk.

We drive smaller cars to save gas.

We fly on planes.

We cross the street.

We accept small risks for other benefits like cost savings or convenience.

So economists don't actually put a price tag on a specific person's life.

No, not in that sense.

Instead, they try to estimate the value people collectively place on reducing the risk of death.

One way is to look at how much people are willing to pay for safety features, like airbags.

Another way is to look at wage differentials.

How much extra do workers demand to take on jobs with higher fatality risks?

Ah, so looking at choices people make reveals how they value risk.

Kind of.

It infers a statistical value.

Based on many such studies, economists often use a figure around,

say, $10 million as the statistical value of a human life for policy analysis purposes.

$10 million, okay.

How would that apply to, say, deciding on a traffic light?

Let's take the example from the book.

Imagine your town council is considering installing a new traffic light that costs $10 ,000.

They estimate it will reduce the risk of a fatal accident at that intersection over its lifetime from 1 .6 percent down to 1 .1 percent.

Okay, so a reduction of 0 .5 percentage points.

Right, or 0 .005.

So the expected benefit using that $10 million figure would be 0 .005 times $10 million.

Which is $50 ,000.

Exactly.

Since that $50 ,000 expected benefit far outweighs the $10 ,000 cost of the light, the cost -benefit analysis would say yes, approve the project.

It's a pragmatic tool, even if the underlying concept feels unsettling.

It is unsettling, but I see the logic for making consistent policy decisions.

Okay, that's a deep dive into public goods and the challenges there.

Let's pivot now to that other problem category, common resources.

Right.

Remember, these are goods that are not excludable so anyone can access them.

But they are a rival in consumption.

My use affects yours.

Precisely.

And that combination creates a fundamentally different kind of market failure.

The danger of overuse.

And the classic story illustrating this is the tragedy of the commons.

Can you walk us through that parable?

It's a really powerful illustration.

Picture a medieval town.

In the center, there's a piece of land called the town common, owned collectively by everyone.

All the families graze their sheep there.

Okay, sounds idyllic.

Initially it is.

When the town is small and there aren't too many sheep, the land is plentiful.

It's effectively non -rival.

Free grazing works fine, then here comes the tragedy.

The town grows.

More sheep.

Exactly.

As the population grows and each family thinks, hmm, if I add just one more sheep to my flock, I get all the benefit from that extra sheep's wool and meat.

But the cost of that sheep -eating grass is spread out over the whole common land, affecting everyone else only a tiny bit.

Precisely.

The private incentive, add more sheep, outweighs the shared social cost of slightly degrading the land.

Each shepherd ignores this negative externality they impose on others.

So everyone adds more sheep?

Until the common land is completely overgrazed, barren, and destroyed.

The wool industry collapses, and everyone suffers because the shared resource was depleted.

A true tragedy born from rational individual decisions.

That's the core insight.

The problem arises because social and private incentives diverge.

When a resource is held in common and is rival, individuals don't fully account for the costs their use imposes on others.

So what were the solutions in the parable, or what policy lessons can we draw for today?

How do you prevent the tragedy?

Well, the town could have tried several things.

They could have regulated the number of sheep per family.

They could have imposed a tax on each sheep, a corrective tax for the externality grazing.

They could have auctioned off a limited number of grazing permits.

And make people pay for using the common resource.

Exactly.

Or, historically,

a common, though often controversial, solution was just privatization.

Divide the common land into private parcels.

Once a family owned their own plot.

They had every incentive not to overgraze their own land.

Right.

They internalized the externality.

This happened historically with the enclosure movement in England.

The general lesson is profound.

When one person uses a common resource, they diminish others' enjoyment.

This negative externality leads to overuse.

Government can often intervene with regulations, taxes, or by converting the common resource into a private good if possible.

As Aristotle apparently noted centuries ago, what is common to many is taken least care of.

That tragedy definitely feels relevant today.

Where do we see this playing out in the modern world beyond sheep?

Oh, everywhere.

Clean air and water are probably the most critical examples.

Pollution is a classic negative externality, and the air we breathe and the water we drink are common resources.

Excessive pollution is a modern tragedy of the commons.

And governments use?

Regulations, emission standards, corrective taxes like carbon taxes, all aimed at reducing the overuse of our shared clean air and water.

What about my commute again?

You mentioned congested roads.

Yes, an uncongested road is a public good, non -rival.

But once it gets crowded, it becomes a common resource.

Your decision to drive adds one more car, slowing everyone else down just a tiny bit that's the rivalry kicking in.

The negative externality of congestion.

Exactly.

Solutions.

Tolls are the most direct economic answer, charging a price for using the scarce road space, essentially a corrective tax for congestion.

Ideally, tolls would be higher during peak rush hour.

Like in London or Stockholm?

Yes.

Those cities use congestion pricing quite effectively.

Gasoline taxes are another policy tool, though they're a bit blunt because they tax driving on all roads, congested or not.

Okay.

What about the natural world?

Fish, wildlife?

Fish, whales, and other wildlife are often prime examples of common resources, especially in the oceans or large wilderness areas.

Because they move around hard to own.

Right.

And they have commercial value.

This combination, open access plus value, creates a huge incentive for over -harvesting.

Each fishing boat, for example, thinks, if I don't catch that fish, the next boat will.

There's very little incentive for any individual fisher to conserve the stock for the future.

Leading to depleted fisheries.

Exactly.

The oceans are vast, making regulation and enforcement incredibly hard, often requiring international cooperation.

Within countries, governments use things like fishing and hunting licenses, limiting the length of the season, restricting the size or number of animals that can be taken all attempts to reduce overuse.

You know, what's fascinating here is connecting this back to property rights, like with the lighthouse example.

Consider why the cow is not extinct, even though it's a hugely valuable food source, while elephants, also valuable, face severe threats.

It's such a stark and powerful illustration of this principle.

What's the fundamental difference?

Cows are private property.

Almost entirely.

Cows are private goods.

They live on privately owned ranches.

Ranchers own the cows, they breed them, they care for them because they reap the benefits when they sell them.

They have a direct incentive to maintain the herd.

But elephants.

Elephants traditionally have been a common resource.

They roam freely across vast areas, often crossing borders without clear owners.

This gives poachers a strong incentive.

Kill as many elephants as quickly as possible to get the ivory, because if they don't, someone else will.

There's little private incentive to conserve the population.

So how do you solve that for elephants?

Just ban poaching?

Banning poaching is one approach.

But it's incredibly difficult and expensive to enforce across huge territories.

Some countries, like Botswana, have experimented with another approach, effectively trying to privatize elephants.

How do you privatize an elephant?

By changing the rules.

They started allowing hunting or culling only on privately owned land or in designated private concessions.

Suddenly, landowners had an economic stake in having healthy elephant populations on their property.

Maybe for tourism, maybe for controlled hunting permits.

This gives them an incentive to protect elephants from poachers and manage the habitat.

It shifts the elephant closer to being a private good,

offering a path, maybe counterintuitive to some, towards conservation.

That's a really clear example of how assigning property rights can change incentives dramatically.

It makes you look at conservation differently.

This whole idea of the commons isn't just about land or animals anymore.

It even applies to our digital lives, doesn't it?

Thinking about social media as a common resource.

That's an incredibly relevant and modern application of the concept.

Think about platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.

They were often designed as open common spaces for anyone to share user -generated content.

But they face huge problems now.

Huge problems.

Extremist content.

Misinformation.

Fake news.

Cyberbullying.

Generally toxic behavior.

You can think of these bad actors as essentially polluters of the digital commons.

Or the people just shouting constantly for attention as overgrazers.

That's a great analogy.

They're overgrazing the collective attention span.

Garrett Hardin's logic from the tragedy of the commons applies surprisingly well.

Individuals pursuing their own self -interest, attention, clicks, spreading an ideology, can end up degrading or even despoiling the shared resource for everyone else.

So how are these platforms trying to manage their digital commons?

Are they like putting up fences or setting grazing limits?

That's exactly what they're grappling with.

We see them constantly tightening community standards.

They're hiring tens of thousands of content moderators.

Facebook aimed for 20 ,000 and what some call censorship division.

There's this huge debate.

Should they act more like traditional publishers, taking more legal responsibility for the content?

Or should they try to remain open platforms, open commons?

What's their preferred solution?

Many aspire to a technical solution,

using artificial intelligence, using algorithms to automatically identify and remove harmful content, hate speech, terrorist propaganda, etc., before users even see it or report it.

Like an automated fence?

Like an automated fence, exactly.

And they've gotten quite good at it for certain types of content.

YouTube says its AI flags 75 % of extremist videos.

Facebook claims 99 % for ISIL -Kaida material.

But AI can't catch everything, can it?

Especially nuance.

No, definitely not.

That's the limitation.

Machines struggle with context, satire, complex debates.

So while AI helps build a fence, it's not a perfect solution.

The original vision of a completely open, unfettered digital community was appealing.

But like many utopias, it turns out to be vulnerable to the tragedy of the commons.

So if we try and tie all this together, looking back at public goods, common resources, the free rider problem, the tragedy of the commons, there seems to be a really strong connecting thread, doesn't there?

There absolutely is.

What we've seen throughout this deep dive for both public goods and common resources is that market failure very often arises because property rights are not well established.

Meaning,

it's not clear who owns something.

Or, even if ownership isn't the right word, it's that some valuable item like clean air, national defense, fish in the ocean, maybe even a stable online environment, lacks a clear owner or entity with the legal authority and the incentive to control its use, protect it, or attach a price to it.

Right.

A factory pollutes because nobody effectively owns the clean air and can charge them for using it as a dumping ground.

Exactly.

National defense isn't privately provided because no one can charge every single person who benefits from it.

The fish get over -harvested because no one owns the fish stocks in the open ocean.

So when these property rights are absent or unclear, that's the opening for government intervention.

That's typically where the economic justification lies.

Governments have a toolkit.

Sometimes, they can step in to help define or assign property rights.

Think about pollution permits that can be traded.

That actually tries to unleash market forces.

Other times, they regulate private behavior directly, like setting fishing seasons or requiring catalytic converters on cars.

Right.

Rules and restrictions.

And sometimes, as we saw with national defense or maybe basic research, they decide the best approach is to use tax revenue to supply the good themselves.

So what's the bottom line here for you, our listener?

It sounds like government intervention isn't always bad for the economy.

Not in the specific cases.

Well -planned and, importantly, well -run government policy, targeted at these situations where markets demonstrably fail due to the nature of the good itself, can make the allocation of resources more efficient.

It can actually raise overall economic well -being for all of us.

It's about understanding when and why markets might need a helping hand.

Precisely.

And this raises, I think, an important question for you to reflect on.

In your own daily life, think about the times you consume goods or services that seem freely available.

Maybe it's enjoying a clean public park, using free Wi -Fi at the library, or even just benefiting from shared social norms like politeness.

Do you ever find yourself acting, maybe even unconsciously, as a free rider?

Hmm.

That's a challenging thought.

How might those small personal actions connect to these bigger societal challenges we've talked about, maybe even beyond just the economic example?

Well, something to mull over.

The principles apply broadly.

Well, thanks for diving deep with us today.

We really hope this journey through public goods and common resources has given you some maybe surprising facts and definitely some new insights into how our economy really works, especially when it comes to those things in life that seem free but actually carry some pretty complex economic weight.