Open-access Goods

Open-access good is a specific type of product comprising of human-made and natural resources, the characteristics and size which renders it expensive but not impracticable to exclude probable beneficiaries from deriving benefits from its use. In other words, it is less or more possible to exclude individuals from utilizing some goods such as biodiversity, roads, fishing waters and parks. Such goods are referred to as open-access goods (Geuss, 2008).

Unlike public goods, open-access goods face serious problems of overuse and congestion. For a pasture permits for a specific period of grazing without the resource being harmed. In case of extreme grazing, nevertheless, the pasture can become prone to erosion and ultimately yield reduced benefits.

Private Goods

A private good is both excludable and rival (Geuss, 2003). It can only be utilized by one consumer at a moment and only be the individual who owns or has bought it.

For example a can of coke is essentially a private product. Only one individual enjoys the advantages of a can of coke and everybody else, except the individual who bought the can, is not included from utilizing it. Other examples of private goods include apples, pen and ice cream. However the terms private and public goods are misleading since some goods which are considered private are provided by the government while some individuals are excluded from public goods.

For instance, although numerous people perceive a television signal as a public good, cable televisions services scuttle their transmissions so as to block non-subscribers from receiving broadcasts easily. Moreover, some private goods such as health care and education are publicly provided by the government.

 Conclusion

This report has recognized four categories of goods. Some products such as public goods are normally provided by the government while private goods are provided through the market.

Quasi-public goods are an intermediate category of goods whose degree of publicness varies depending on the level of difficult in excluding non-payers. Business managers and government officials need to have a solid knowledge of public and private so as to be able to reduce the cost of providing goods. For public goods, the government officials should know that it is very pricey to thwart others from utilizing them and therefore uneconomical.

References

Geuss, R. (2003). Public goods, private goods. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.