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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Collective action problem | 3/6 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T07:13:10.731395+00:00 | kb-cron |
A public goods dilemma is a situation in which the whole group can benefit if some of the members give something for the common good but individuals benefit from "free riding" if enough others contribute. Public goods are defined by two characteristics: non-excludability and non-rivalry—meaning that anyone can benefit from them and one person's use of them does not hinder another person's use of them. An example is public broadcasting that relies on contributions from viewers. Since no single viewer is essential for providing the service, viewers can reap the benefits of the service without paying anything for it. If not enough people contribute, the service cannot be provided. In economics, the literature around public goods dilemmas refers to the phenomenon as the free-rider problem. The economic approach is broadly applicable and can refer to the free-riding that accompanies any sort of public good. In social psychology, the literature refers to this phenomenon as social loafing. Whereas free-riding is generally used to describe public goods, social loafing refers specifically to the tendency for people to exert less effort when in a group than when working alone. Public goods are goods that are nonrival and nonexcludable. A good is said to be nonrival if its consumption by one consumer does not in any way impact its consumption by another consumer. Additionally, a good is said to be nonexcludable if those who do not pay for the good cannot be kept from enjoying the benefits of the good. The nonexcludability aspect of public goods is where one facet of the collective action problem, known as the free-rider problem, comes into play. For instance, a company could put on a fireworks display and charge an admittance price of $10, but if community members could all view the fireworks display from their homes, most would choose not to pay the admittance fee. Thus, the majority of individuals would choose to free ride, discouraging the company from putting on another fireworks show in the future. Even though the fireworks display was surely beneficial to each of the individuals, they relied on those paying the admittance fee to finance the show. If everybody had assumed this position, however, the company putting on the show would not have been able to procure the funds necessary to buy the fireworks that provided enjoyment for so many individuals. This situation is indicative of a collective action problem because the individual incentive to free ride conflicts with the collective desire of the group to pay for a fireworks show for all to enjoy. Pure public goods include services such as national defense and public parks that are usually provided by governments using taxpayer funds. In return for their tax contribution, taxpayers enjoy the benefits of these public goods. In developing countries where funding for public projects is scarce, however, it often falls on communities to compete for resources and finance projects that benefit the collective group. The ability of communities to successfully contribute to public welfare depends on the size of the group, the power or influence of group members, the tastes and preferences of individuals within the group, and the distribution of benefits among group members. When a group is too large or the benefits of collective action are not tangible to individual members, the collective action problem results in a lack of cooperation that makes the provision of public goods difficult.
== Replenishing resource management == A replenishing resource management dilemma is a situation in which group members share a renewable resource that will continue to produce benefits if group members do not over harvest it but in which any single individual profits from harvesting as much as possible.
=== Tragedy of the commons ===
The tragedy of the commons is a type of replenishing resource management dilemma. The dilemma arises when members of a group share a common good. A common good is rivalrous and non-excludable, meaning that anyone can use the resource but there is a finite amount of the resource available and it is therefore prone to overexploitation. The paradigm of the tragedy of the commons first appeared in an 1833 pamphlet by English economist William Forster Lloyd. According to Lloyd, "If a person puts more cattle into his own field, the amount of the subsistence which they consume is all deducted from that which was at the command, of his original stock; and if, before, there was no more than a sufficiency of pasture, he reaps no benefit from the additional cattle, what is gained in one way being lost in another. But if he puts more cattle on a common, the food which they consume forms a deduction which is shared between all the cattle, as well that of others as his own, in proportion to their number, and only a small part of it is taken from his own cattle". The template of the tragedy of the commons can be used to understand myriad problems, including various forms of resource depletion. For example, overfishing in the 1960s and 1970s led to depletion of the previously abundant supply of Atlantic Cod. By 1992, the population of cod had completely collapsed because fishers had not left enough fish to repopulate the species. Another example is the higher rates of COVID-19 cases of sickness and deaths in individualistic (vs. collectivists) countries. (Note that more recent research from 2022 suggest that individualistic societies are associated with lower COVID-19-related mortality rates. This finding contradicts previous studies that supported the popular narrative that collectivistic societies with an obedient population are better positioned to manage the pandemic.)
== Social traps ==