Talk:Rivalry (economics)

Rivalrous equals Scarce?
The paragraph beginning "Non-rivalrous goods are not scarce from the point of view of the individual, but are typically scarce from a social perspective" seems slightly off to me. In what may seem like a minor quibble, it seems to me that it is the resources for producing, maintaining or improving the good that are scarce, not the good itself.

To use the example of this Wikipedia, it could be be bigger or better given extra resources but is what currently exists scarce in the economics meaning of the term? In the scarcity article the following definition is given: "a good is scarce if people would consume more of it if it were free." By this definition the Wikipedia can never be scarce.

In the Free rider article, non- or under-production of a public good is mentioned as a common problem. Are these under-produced public goods then scarce or is there a different term for lack of goods whose production needs an allocation of scarce resources but once complete can be duplicated/enjoyed by all with ease?

Can the confusion be cleared up simply by emphasising that (non-)rivalrousness is a continuum and that beautiful views and good policing are scarcer in some localities than in others? Or is this just a gap in economics created by too tight a focus on rivalrous goods and scarcity?

DavidScotson 19:55, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'd agree totally, except that I wrote that "Non-rivalrous goods are not scarce from the point of view of the individual, but are typically scarce from a social perspective." That "typically" is a weasel-word, but it suggests that there may be some goods that aren't scarce (such as the Wikipedia). I'll clarify the text.

On the third problem, I guess the term for an "under-produced public goods" would be those public goods which aren't very important to people, so that no-one has done anything about the failure of private initiative to produce them.

Too much focus on scarcity? maybe. Some earlier author suggested that public goods aren't scarce. I added my clarifying point about them not being scarce _from the point of view of the individual_ -- but that they may be scarce from another perspective. Jdevine 22:01, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

economic goods
should this page be changed into economic goods? it talks mostly about rival and nonrival goods. so why should it be called rivolous? it also makes sense calling it economic goods. what do u8 guys think?

common cold is a good?
From the article: "Nonrival, tangible objects include a beautiful scenic view or the common cold." First, I assume 'objects' in that sentence means 'goods'. Probably it should just say 'goods'. Second, is the common cold actually considered an 'object/good'? I understand the point of the example, but perhaps there's something else that can be used in the example to serve the same purpose that is more obviously a good than 'common cold'.

Bjpremore 14:51, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I have an issue with that sentence as well. Scenic views being considered non-rival. Space to see that certain view is limited and more often than not, you pay a premium for that view. I suppose you could say that the view itself is nonrival, but the space to view it is rivalrous. --Chicbicyclist 11:59, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi

I agree with Bjpremore, the examples used (common cold and scenic view) are not particularly helpful; if anything, they confuse the issue. I do not think that I understand the concept well enough to offer alternative examples. Also, the example of Television is not very good either. Clearly, a television is a rival good - two people cannot watch different programs on the same set at the same time. I think the example means television programbut it is not clear; maybe a different example could be used for clarity's sake?

84.65.163.56 17:50, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

What exactly defines a "mainstream" economist —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cndrblw26 (talk • contribs) 03:54, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Need an expert
How is national defense different from national health care when it comes to being excludable? Same for national education. USchick (talk) 23:59, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Intellectual property
A recent change added "intellectual property" as a rivalrous good; however, copyrights and patents are necessarily and inherently mechanisms to apply scarcity to non-rivalrous goods. I will remove this change once; please comment with rationale if you disagree. chrylis (talk) 00:34, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I disagree. It's not the IP that is non-scarce, but the reproduction that is. The IP itself is theoretically unique. The legal protections to IP are just the possible approximations adequate to the nature of this type of good. The rivalry of IP is evident when you consider that the more the market is saturated by sellers of a given IP, such as a book or a movie, the smaller is the potential profit for each seller. It's not unlike someone actually stealing a production of physical goods and selling entirely for their own profit. That's why laws protecting intellectual property were devised, effectively creating the viability of such market, visibly fostering intellectual and technological progress. We can always imagine that there could be some holistic effect in the end without a market, but so is the case with full-blown communism or mutualism of physical goods. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.46.155.91 (talk) 04:22, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Updated Definition to Reflect Continuous Nature of Rivarly
Following on recent advances in economic theory, the entry was updated and the number of supporting references has been quadrupled. The entry has not been revised beyond the first paragraph due to other commitments. Further work will be necessary to weed out unsupported claims and streamline the remaining. Thanks to everybody involved. Sslevine (talk) 22:04, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Value is subjective
The article says: "In fact, certain types of intellectual property become more valuable as more people consume them (anti-rival). For example, the more people using a particular language, the more valuable that language becomes." This is incorrect, since value is subjective. As it's written, this is an attempt to say that the objective value of a language is in its ease of use with as many people as possible, and that this is true for that entire type of intellectual property. An easy counterexample would be a code, where the value of it to its creators and users is that it isn't widely known. There are also people who don't hope that their non-code language spreads beyond their tribe or ethnic group.

Since value is subjective, there is no type of intellectual property that implies any objective values. —Olathe (talk) 13:32, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Rival or rivalrous goods?
I have mostly been seeing "rival goods" and not "rivalrous goods". A quick search on Ngram confirms my impression: in the year 2000 for instance, the expression "rival good" has been used six times more than "rivalrous good". A quick search in dictionaries seems to indicate that "rivalrous" would be more adequate however (for instance in Merriam Webster, "rivalrous" is defined as "given to rivalry"). Any ideas? Rdavout (talk) 13:14, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Assessment of Article
I agree that this article is not fully complete, however I believe it is of a "C Class". It provides a good amount of detail on rivalrous goods and creates an understanding through thorough use of examples of each. Some reliable sources are referenced. A reader not involved in economics will receive a solid base-level understanding of rival goods from reading this article. Some formatting could be done - i.e. sometimes the article reads formally, and in other parts sounds more informal. Rival goods are an important concept in economics, and so I would rate this as "High Importance".

Hskep1 21:30, 23 October 2020 (AEST)

Are anti-climate change efforts anti-rivalrous?
A good is anti-rivalrous if its utility increases with how much it's used by others. Anti-climate change efforts can be understood as an intangible good which one can invest in in order to reap benefits of reduced climate change. If too many people participate in anti-climate change efforts, then the marginal utility of each additional anti-climate change effort approaches zero. I don't understand the claim in this article that "" Unless someone can explain it, I intend to remove it. Daask (talk) 17:42, 2 April 2021 (UTC)


 * It seems quite clear and obvious to me. The statement could be made stronger:
 * The US will benefit from any effective measures that others take to combat climate change. That makes anti-climate change efforts anti-rivalrous.
 * The perversion comes, because the US makes money acting contrary to the best interests of humanity, while those who act more responsibly actually pay.
 * In sum, the US is rewarded for doing it wrong, while those who act more responsibly are punished for doing what everyone should do. Those are perverse incentives built into a political economy that does not properly internalize all the costs to society in the price to the consumer.  DavidMCEddy (talk) 17:55, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Questionable examples of nonrivalrous
"Other examples of non-rival goods include a beautiful scenic view, national defense, clean air, street lights, and public safety"

Helpful-Concrete (talk) 19:54, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
 * A beautiful scenic view can be located entirely on private property and not accessible to anyone but the owner. Even if public, the infrastructure to drive/hike to that view can only fit a certain number of people.
 * National defense is a finite resource which can be depleted. The pigeonhole principle implies that after a certain number of simultaneous fronts, there will no longer be troops available to defend another attack. (The last person to get attacked, who gets no army response, will certainly see it as a rival good, as the usage by others prevented the usage by him)
 * Whether or not you have clean air depends on your geographic location, which is again limited by both private property and pigeonhole principle (given any bounded location with "clean air", only a certain number of people can fit in that area)
 * Public safety is depletable like the military - if all city police units are already responding to other calls, you will not get a response. If all county rescue helicopters are already rescuing people, there is no rescue helicopter to save you.


 * I think it's key to consider whether the standard, typical case for each example makes sense; not so much to see that the examples make sense in every detail. For instance, clean air as a non-rivalrous good is usually thought of in the local context of a park or a local neighborhood. However, if you have better (more bulletproof) examples, then maybe we can use those to improve the article. — HTGS (talk) 08:13, 11 September 2023 (UTC)