PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Sandler, Todd
AU  - Arce M., Daniel G.
TI  - Pure Public Goods versus Commons: Benefit-Cost Duality
AID  - 10.2307/3147022
DP  - 2003 Aug 01
TA  - Land Economics
PG  - 355--368
VI  - 79
IP  - 3
4099  - http://le.uwpress.org/content/79/3/355.short
4100  - http://le.uwpress.org/content/79/3/355.full
SO  - Land Econ2003 Aug 01; 79
AB  - This paper utilizes benefit-cost duality to differentiate the problems associated with a pure public good from the problems associated with a commons. For the public good scenario, contributors’ benefits are public or available to all, while provision costs impact only the contributor. In a commons, crowding costs are public, while benefits affect only the user. Although both problems possess the same game form for their canonical representations, collective-action implications differ: for example, the relative positions of the Nash equilibrium and Pareto optimum, the form of the exploitation hypothesis, and the need for selective incentives or punishments. (JEL H41, D70)