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

Maxime Desmarais-Tremblay

Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) from HAL

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-exclusion; non-rivalry; non-rivalité; biens collectifs; biens sociaux (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-hme, nep-hpe, nep-pke and nep-pub
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Published in 2014

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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:hal:cesptp:halshs-00951577

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