[lsbskins1]

Rob-

Free rider
A person who chooses to receive the benefits of a "public good" or a "positive externality" without contributing to paying the costs of producing those benefits.


Public goods
Also called collective goods. These are a very special class of goods which cannot practically be withheld from one individual consumer without withholding them from all (the “nonexcludability criterion”) and for which the marginal cost of an additional person consuming them, once they have been produced, is zero (the “nonrivalrous consumption” criterion). The classic example of a nearly pure public good is national defense: you cannot defend the vulnerable border regions of a country from the ravages of foreign invaders without also simultaneously defending everyone else who lives within the borders. The inability of potential providers to exclude people who refuse to pay from nevertheless consuming and benefitting from an expensive public good usually means that very many of the consumers of the good will act as free riders and choose not to help pay for its provision. Consequently private production of the good or service may prove unprofitable, and the good or service thus may not be provided at all by the free market — even though everyone might concede they would be better off with some positive level of production of the good in question.