💲Honors Economics Unit 6 – Market Failures: Externalities & Public Goods

Key Concepts

• Market failures occur when the free market fails to allocate resources efficiently, leading to a loss of economic well-being
• Externalities are costs or benefits that affect a third party not involved in the economic transaction and can be positive or negative
• Public goods are non-excludable and non-rivalrous, meaning individuals cannot be effectively excluded from use and use by one individual does not reduce availability to others
• Common resources are non-excludable but rivalrous, leading to overuse and depletion (tragedy of the commons)
• Government interventions, such as taxes, subsidies, and regulations, are used to correct market failures and promote efficiency
• Deadweight loss is the net loss to society that occurs when the market equilibrium is not economically efficient
  • Represents the loss of consumer and producer surplus due to market inefficiencies
• Property rights are the legal rights of ownership, use, and transfer of resources and play a crucial role in the efficient allocation of resources

Types of Market Failures

• Externalities, both positive and negative, lead to inefficient market outcomes as the true costs or benefits are not reflected in market prices
• Public goods are underprovided by the private market due to the free-rider problem, as individuals can benefit without paying
• Common resources are overused and depleted due to the lack of property rights and the tragedy of the commons
• Asymmetric information occurs when one party in a transaction has more or better information than the other, leading to adverse selection and moral hazard
  • Adverse selection: when hidden information before a transaction leads to undesired results (lemons market)
  • Moral hazard: when hidden actions after a transaction lead to risky behavior (insurance markets)
• Monopoly power results in higher prices, lower output, and deadweight loss compared to a competitive market
• Inequality and poverty can be seen as market failures, as the market may not distribute resources fairly or provide for basic needs

Externalities Explained

• Positive externalities are benefits to a third party that are not reflected in market prices (education, vaccinations)
  • Lead to underproduction and underconsumption compared to the socially optimal level
• Negative externalities are costs to a third party that are not reflected in market prices (pollution, congestion)
  • Lead to overproduction and overconsumption compared to the socially optimal level
• Marginal social benefit (MSB) is the sum of marginal private benefit and marginal external benefit
• Marginal social cost (MSC) is the sum of marginal private cost and marginal external cost
• The socially optimal quantity occurs where MSB equals MSC, maximizing total economic surplus
• Internalizing externalities through taxes (Pigouvian tax), subsidies, or property rights can align private and social costs/benefits

Public Goods and Common Resources

• Pure public goods are both non-excludable and non-rivalrous (national defense, public parks)
  • Free-rider problem leads to underprovision by the private market
• Quasi-public goods are either non-excludable or non-rivalrous, but not both (cable TV, toll roads)
• Common resources are non-excludable but rivalrous (fishing grounds, grazing lands)
  • Tragedy of the commons leads to overuse and depletion without property rights or regulation
• Club goods are excludable but non-rivalrous, often provided by private clubs or organizations (golf courses, private parks)
• Congestion can occur with quasi-public goods and common resources when use reaches capacity limits
• Government provision, regulation, or assignment of property rights can address the inefficiencies associated with public goods and common resources

Government Interventions

• Taxes can be used to internalize negative externalities by increasing the private cost to match the social cost (carbon tax)
• Subsidies can be used to internalize positive externalities by increasing the private benefit to match the social benefit (education subsidies)
• Regulations and standards set limits on negative externalities or require certain behaviors to promote positive externalities (emissions standards, building codes)
  • Command-and-control regulations directly control behavior through rules and penalties
  • Market-based regulations use incentives to influence behavior indirectly (cap-and-trade)
• Government provision of public goods ensures an adequate supply of goods that the private market would underprovide (infrastructure, public education)
• Assigning property rights can solve the tragedy of the commons by giving owners an incentive to conserve and manage resources efficiently (fishing quotas, grazing rights)
• Coase theorem suggests that private bargaining can solve externality problems if transaction costs are low and property rights are well-defined

Real-World Examples

• Positive externalities:
  • Education: Educated individuals benefit society through higher productivity, innovation, and civic engagement
  • Vaccinations: Immunized individuals reduce the spread of disease, benefiting the entire community
• Negative externalities:
  • Air and water pollution from factories and vehicles impose health and environmental costs on society
  • Traffic congestion from individual driving decisions increases travel times and fuel consumption for others
• Public goods:
  • National defense protects the entire country, regardless of individual contributions
  • Public parks and beaches are open to all, but can suffer from overuse and degradation
• Common resources:
  • Overfishing in international waters has led to the depletion of many fish stocks
  • Deforestation of common land for individual gain reduces biodiversity and contributes to climate change

Economic Models and Graphs

• Production possibilities frontier (PPF) can illustrate the opportunity cost of providing public goods or addressing externalities
• Demand and supply curves can show the effect of externalities on market equilibrium and efficiency
  • Positive externalities shift the demand curve to the right, increasing equilibrium quantity and price
  • Negative externalities shift the supply curve to the left, decreasing equilibrium quantity and increasing price
• Marginal benefit and marginal cost curves can demonstrate the socially optimal level of production or consumption
  • Positive externalities create a divergence between private and social marginal benefit curves
  • Negative externalities create a divergence between private and social marginal cost curves
• Deadweight loss triangles can quantify the net loss to society from market inefficiencies caused by externalities or market power
• Lorenz curve and Gini coefficient can measure income inequality as a potential market failure

Policy Debates and Controversies

• Balancing efficiency and equity in addressing market failures and redistributing resources
• Determining the appropriate level and type of government intervention (taxes, subsidies, regulations) to correct externalities
• Measuring and monetizing the value of non-market goods and services (environmental quality, health, happiness)
• Potential government failures, such as regulatory capture, rent-seeking, and unintended consequences of interventions
  • Regulatory capture occurs when special interests influence regulators to act in their favor
  • Rent-seeking is the use of resources to obtain economic rents through political influence rather than productive activity
• Distributional impacts of policies designed to address market failures, such as carbon taxes or congestion pricing
• Role of property rights, transaction costs, and bargaining in resolving externality problems (Coase theorem)
• Balancing the benefits and costs of intellectual property rights (patents, copyrights) in promoting innovation and efficiency