Free good - Citizendia

The free good is a term used in economics to describe a good that is not scarce. Economics is the social science that studies the production distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Scarcity (also called paucity) is the problem of Infinite human needs and Wants, in a world of Finite Resources In other A free good is available in as great a quantity as desired with zero opportunity cost to society. Opportunity cost or economic opportunity loss is the value of a product forgone to produce or obtain A society is a Population of Humans characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals that share a distinctive Culture and Institutions

A good that is made available at zero price is not necessarily a free good. For example, a shop might give away its stock in its promotion, but producing these goods would still have required the use of scarce resources, so this would not be a free good in an economic sense.

There are three main types of free goods:

Resources that are so abundant in nature that there is enough for everyone to have as much as they want. An example of this is the air that we breathe.

Resources that are jointly produced. Here the free good is produced as a by-product of something more valuable. Waste products from factories and homes, such as discarded packaging, are often free goods (see also dumpster diving). Dumpster diving is the practice of sifting through commercial or residential trash to find items that have been discarded by their owners but which may be useful to the

Ideas and works that are reproducible at zero cost, or almost zero cost. For example, if someone invents a new device, many people could copy this invention, with no danger of this "resource" running out. Other examples include computer programs and web pages.

Copyrights and patents have the effect of converting some goods to scarce goods by law. Copyright is a legal concept enacted by Governments, giving the creator of an original work of authorship Exclusive rights to control its distribution usually for A patent is a set of Exclusive rights granted by a State to an inventor or his assignee for a fixed period of time in exchange for a disclosure of an Although these goods are free goods (in the economic sense) once they have been produced, they do require scarce resources, such as skilled manpower, to create them in the first place. Thus these laws are sometimes used to give exclusive rights to the creators of such "intellectual property" in order to encourage resources to be appropriately allocated to these activities. Intellectual property ( IP) is a legal field that refers to creations of the mind such as musical literary and artistic works inventions and symbols names

Many futurists theorize that advanced nanotechnology with the ability to automatically turn any kind of material into any other combination of equal mass, will make all goods essentially free goods, since all raw materials and manufacturing time will become perfectly interchangeable. Futures Studies, Foresight, or Futurology is the science art and practice of postulating possible probable and preferable futures and the worldviews Nanotechnology, sometimes shortened to nanotech, refers to a field of Applied science whose theme is the control of matter on an Atomic and Molecular

Types of goods

public good - private good - common good - common-pool resource - club good - anti-rival goods

rivalrous good and non-excludable good complement good vs. In Economics, a public good is a good that is non-rivaled and non-excludable. A private good is defined in Economics as a good that exhibits these properties Excludable - it is reasonably possible to prevent a class of Common goods are defined in Economics as goods which are Rivalrous and Non-excludable. In Economics, a common-pool resource (CPR, alternatively termed a common property resource, is a particular type of good consisting of a natural Club goods (also known as collective goods or artificially-scarce goods) are a type of good in Economics, sometimes classified as a subtype of The term anti-rival goods is a neologism coined by Steven Weber to describe goods created by a process of reciprocal exchange for mutual benefit such as Free software In Economics, a good is considered either rivalrous (rival or nonrival. In Economics, a good or service is said to be excludable when it is possible to prevent people who have not paid for it from enjoying its benefits and non-excludable A complementary good or complement good in Economics is a good which is consumed with another good its Cross elasticity of demand is negative substitute good free good vs. In Economics, one kind of good (or service is said to be a substitute good for another kind insofar as the two kinds of goods can be consumed or used in place of positional good

(non-)durable good - intermediate good (producer good) - final good - capital good
inferior good - normal good - ordinary good - Giffen good - luxury good - Veblen good - superior good
search good - (post-)experience good - merit good - credence good - demerit good - composite good

Positional goods are products and services whose value is mostly (if not exclusively a function of their ranking in desirability in comparison to substitutes In Economics, a durable good or a hard good is a good which does not quickly wear out or more specifically it yields services or Intermediate goods or producer goods are goods used as inputs in the production of other goods such as partly finished goods or Raw materials A firm may In Marxian economics, capital goods originally referred to the Means of production. In Consumer theory, an inferior good is a good that decreases in demand when consumer income rises unlike Normal goods for which the opposite is observed In Economics, normal goods are any goods for which Demand increases when income increases i An ordinary good is a microeconomic concept used in Consumer theory. In Economics ( Consumer theory) a Giffen good is that which people consume more of as price rises violating the Law of demand. In Economics, a luxury good is a good for which Demand increases more than proportionally as income rises in contrast to a "necessity good" In Economics, Veblen goods are a theoretical group of commodities for which peoples' preference for buying them increases as a direct function of their Superior goods make up a larger proportion of consumption as Income rises and as such are a type of Normal goods in Consumer theory In Economics, a search good is a product or service with features and characteristics easily evaluated before purchase In Economics, an experience good is a product or service where product characteristics such as quality or price are difficult to observe in advance but these characteristics A merit good in Economics is a commodity which is judged that an individual or society should have on the basis of a norm other than respecting consumer preferences A credence good is a term used in Economics for a good whose Utility impact is difficult or impossible for the consumer to ascertain In Economics, a demerit good is a good or service whose consumption is considered unhealthy degrading or otherwise socially undesirable due to the perceived In Economics, demand for a good is often the focus as to a change in its price

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