On the Definition of Public Goods. Assessing Richard A. Musgrave's contribution

Maxime Desmarais-Tremblay

Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne from Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne

Abstract: This paper provides an explanation of the emergence of the standars textbook definition of public goods in the middle of the 20th century. It focuses on Richard Musgrave's contribution in defining public goods as non-rival and non-excludable – from 1939 to 1969. Although Samuelson's mathematical definition is generally used in models of public goods, the qualitative understanding of the specificity of pure public goods owes more to Musgrave's emphasis on the impossibility of exclusion. This paper also highlights the importance of the size of the group to which benefits of a public good accrue. This analysis allow for a reassessment of the Summary table of goods which first appeared in Musgrave and Musgrave (1973) textbook

Keywords: Richard A. Musgrave; social goods; public goods; non-rivalry; non-exclusion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A22 B29 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2014-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-hpe and nep-pub
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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ftp://mse.univ-paris1.fr/pub/mse/CES2014/14004.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: On the Definition of Public Goods. Assessing Richard A. Musgrave's contribution (2014)
Working Paper: On the Definition of Public Goods. Assessing Richard A. Musgrave's contribution (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mse:cesdoc:14004

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