Workshop 11

1. The following are problems that prevent markets from providing a socially
optimal allocation of resources:
(i) Externalities
(ii) Monopoly/oligopoly power
(iii) Ignorance and uncertainty
(iv) Public goods and services
(v) Semi-public goods and services

Match each of the above categories to the following examples of failures of

the free market (also called “market failures”). In each case imagine that
everything has to be provided by private enterprise: that there is no
government provision, intervention or regulation whatsoever. Note that there
may be more than one example of each category of problem. Note also that
each of the following cases may be an example of more than one category of
problem.

(a) There is an inadequate provision of street lighting.

(b) Advertising allows firms to sell people goods that they do not really want.

(c) A firm tips toxic waste into a river because it can do so at no cost to
itself.

(d) People may not know what is in their best interests and thus may
underconsume certain goods or services (such as education).

(e) Firms’ marginal revenue is not equal to the price of the good and thus
they do not equate MC and price.

2. When economists use the term ‘public good’, they use it in a stricter sense than how we use the
term ‘public’ in every day speech (for example when we talk of ‘public transport’ or ‘public
opinion’). In the economists’ usage ‘public goods’ refers to goods or services that are both ‘non-
excludable’ (that is, it is difficult to block non-payers from using or accessing these goods and
services) and ‘non-rivalrous’ (that is, the enjoyment of these goods or services by some users
does not significantly reduce the ability of other users to enjoy them as well). These two
characteristics suggests four different classes of goods as shown in this figure:

Excludable Non-Excludable
Rivalrous Private Goods: Common-pool Resources:
Sandwiches Rain forest
Shoes Fresh air
Houses

Non-rivalrous Club Goods: Public Goods:

Netflix Street lights
Music festivals defence

(a) Which of the following are examples of public goods or services in the strict sense used by
economists (see above)

(i) Museums.............................................................................................................................
(ii) Motorways..................................................................................................................

(iii) National defence.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

(iv) Health care.....................................................................................................................

(v) The fire service..............................................................................................................

(vi) Street
drains…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

(vii) Secondary education

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4. The figure below shows the production of fertiliser by a perfectly competitive profit-maximising
firm. Production of the good leads to pollution of the environment, however. This pollution is
an external cost to the firm.
(a) Which of the two curves, I or II,
represents the marginal social cost
curve?
.......................................................

(b) What output will the firm produce

if it takes no account of the
pollution?

(c) What is the level of the marginal

external cost at this output?
(d) What is the socially efficient level
of output?
(e) Assume that the government
imposes a tax on the pollution
caused by the firm at a constant
rate per unit of output. What must the size of the tax per unit be in order to persuade the
firm to produce the socially efficient level of output?

(f) Assuming that this firm is the only polluter in the industry, what effect will the tax have on
the market price?

(g) What would happen differently if the industry was less than perfectly competitive?