Role of Government in Health Part 2 Public Goods
Summary
TLDRIn this segment, David Bishai discusses the role of government in health, particularly focusing on public goods and merit goods. Merit goods are under-consumed but deemed desirable by entities like governments, exemplified by education and vaccinations. The script explores concepts like externalities, paternalistic altruism, and the definitions of rival and non-rival goods, excludable and non-excludable goods, leading to the identification of pure public goods. Examples in health include controlling contagious diseases and improving environmental health, emphasizing the importance of government institutions in ensuring public health.
Takeaways
- 🏛 The role of government in health is to address issues related to public goods and merit goods, which are under-consumed but deemed desirable by entities like governments or educators.
- 🧬 Merit goods, such as education, vaccinations, and exercise, are promoted by governments due to their perceived benefits to society, often based on paternalistic altruism.
- 🤔 Paternalistic altruism is the concept where one party, like a government, wants another party to be happy in a specific way, hence providing merit goods instead of cash.
- 🍪 Rival goods are those that can only be consumed by one person at a time, like a cookie, whereas non-rival goods can be enjoyed by multiple people without diminishing the value, like the moon.
- 🚫 Excludable goods are those from which people can be excluded if they haven't paid or met certain criteria, contrasting with non-excludable goods that cannot be withheld from anyone.
- 🌐 A pure public good is defined as non-rival and non-excludable, meaning everyone can benefit from it without preventing others from doing the same.
- 🛑 Examples of public goods in health include controlling contagious diseases like COVID-19, environmental health improvements, and regulation of dangerous consumer products.
- 🏥 The quality of health services in a country is considered a special form of public good, as it benefits the entire population and cannot be withheld from individuals.
- 🔍 The taxonomy of goods includes private goods, club goods, common pool resources, and pure public goods, each with different combinations of rivalry and excludability.
- 🌐 National defense is a classic example of a public good provided by governments, illustrating the concept of excludability within a nation's borders.
- 🌍 There are also global public goods, such as the eradication of COVID-19, which would benefit everyone on the planet and cannot be excludable.
- 💡 The script suggests looking at the PowerPoint notes for additional insights on whether altruistic glow is a local or global public good, indicating further exploration of public goods concepts.
Q & A
What is the main focus of David Bishai's segment?
-The main focus of David Bishai's segment is the role of government in health, specifically discussing public goods and merit goods.
Why are merit goods considered important by governments?
-Merit goods are considered important by governments because they are under-consumed by individuals but are judged to be desirable by entities such as the government, which may have reasons like externalities or the need for a healthy population.
What is an example of a merit good mentioned in the script?
-Examples of merit goods mentioned in the script include education, vaccinations, and exercise.
What is the rationale behind providing merit goods?
-The rationale behind providing merit goods is paternalistic altruism, where person A wants person B to be happy in the exact manner defined by person A, hence providing a specific good rather than cash.
What is the difference between a rival good and a non-rival good?
-A rival good is one that can only be consumed by one person at a time, like a cookie. A non-rival good is one where consumption by person A does not affect the consumption by person B, such as the ability to look at the moon.
What are excludable goods and how do they differ from non-excludable goods?
-Excludable goods are those for which it is possible to exclude people from enjoying them, such as through enforcing private property rights. Non-excludable goods, on the other hand, are those from which it is not possible to exclude people, like the moon.
Define a pure public good according to the script.
-A pure public good is defined as a good that is non-rival and non-excludable, meaning that everybody can enjoy it and it is not possible to stop anybody from enjoying it.
What are some examples of public goods in health mentioned in the script?
-Examples of public goods in health mentioned in the script include controlling contagious diseases like COVID-19, controlling environmental health threats, regulating dangerous consumer products, and improving the safety of roads.
How does the script differentiate between private goods, club goods, common pool resources, and pure public goods?
-Private goods are rival and excludable, like a cheeseburger. Club goods are non-rival but excludable, such as a cable TV network. Common pool resources are rival but non-excludable, like a trout stream. Pure public goods are non-rival and non-excludable.
What is the role of government in providing public goods as discussed in the script?
-The role of government in providing public goods, as discussed in the script, is to create excludability clauses and ensure that citizens enjoy the public goods of the country, such as national defense.
What is the script's perspective on global public goods?
-The script suggests that there are global public goods, such as the eradication of COVID-19, which would benefit everyone on the planet and cannot exclude anyone from its benefits.
Outlines
🏥 The Role of Government in Health: Public and Merit Goods
David Bishai introduces the segment on the government's role in health, focusing on public goods and merit goods. He explains that governments intervene in health to address issues related to these goods. Merit goods are under-consumed by individuals but are considered desirable by entities like governments or educators. Examples include education, vaccinations, and exercise. The rationale behind promoting merit goods is often paternalistic altruism, where the provider wants the recipient to be happy in a specific way, hence providing them with goods rather than cash. Bishai also defines rival and non-rival goods, excludable and non-excludable goods, and uses these definitions to explain the concept of pure public goods, giving examples such as controlling contagious diseases and environmental health threats.
🌐 Public Goods Taxonomy and Global Health Perspectives
This paragraph delves into the taxonomy of goods, differentiating between private goods, club goods, common pool resources, and pure public goods based on their rivalrous and excludable properties. Private goods are both rival and excludable, like a cheeseburger or a haircut. Club goods are non-rival but excludable, such as cable TV networks or health maintenance organizations (HMOs). Common pool resources are rival but non-excludable, exemplified by a trout stream. Pure public goods are both non-rival and non-excludable. The government's role in creating excludability is highlighted, with national defense as a classic example of a public good provided by governments. The concept extends to global public goods, such as the eradication of COVID-19, which would benefit everyone on the planet. The paragraph concludes with an invitation to explore additional notes on local versus global public goods and sets the stage for the next section on solving public goods problems.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Merit Goods
💡Externality
💡Paternalistic Altruism
💡Rival Good
💡Non-Rival Good
💡Excludable Goods
💡Non-Excludable Goods
💡Pure Public Good
💡Club Goods
💡Common Pool Resource
💡Altruistic Glow
Highlights
David Bishai presents a segment on the role of government in health, focusing on public goods and merit goods.
Merit goods are under-consumed by individuals but are deemed desirable by entities like governments or educators.
Examples of merit goods include education, vaccinations, and exercise, often promoted for societal benefits like health and readiness for military service.
The rationale behind merit goods is paternalistic altruism, where the provider dictates the means for the recipient's happiness.
Rival goods are consumable by one person at a time, such as a cookie, while non-rival goods can be enjoyed by many without affecting others, like the moon.
Excludable goods can prevent non-payers from enjoying them, unlike non-excludable goods where enjoyment cannot be restricted.
A pure public good is defined as non-rival and non-excludable, benefiting everyone equally without the possibility of exclusion.
Public goods in health include controlling contagious diseases like COVID-19, which benefits everyone and cannot exclude anyone from its benefits.
Environmental health threats and regulations on dangerous consumer products are also considered public goods due to their widespread impact.
Safe roads and healthcare institutions that improve the safety of medications and providers are forms of public goods in the health sector.
Protecting vulnerable populations from health conditions is a special form of public good that benefits society as a whole.
Private goods are rival and excludable, such as a personal haircut or a cheeseburger, where consumption is exclusive to the payer.
Club goods are non-rival but excludable, like cable TV networks where access requires payment, but everyone can enjoy the same content.
Common pool resources are rival but non-excludable, such as a trout stream where fish are limited but access cannot be restricted.
Governments often create excludability to solve public goods problems, such as forming armies for national defense.
From a global perspective, national defense is a club good, where citizens pay and receive the benefit of protection.
There are global public goods, such as the eradication of COVID-19, which would benefit everyone on the planet without exclusion.
Local public goods, like clean water and healthcare institutions, can also be addressed through club models to ensure access and quality.
The transcript includes additional notes on altruistic glow as a local or global public good, inviting further exploration of these concepts.
The next section will cover solutions to public goods problems, which are essential for improving global living standards.
Transcripts
hello this is David bishai and I'm here
to present our segment on the role of
government and health this is part two
to cover public goods and Merit Goods
part of the reasons governments uh get
involved in health is to solve problems
in this area of public goods and Merit
Goods
so let's Define merit Goods Merit goods
are under consumed by individuals yet
judged to be desirable by someone else
often a government or your mother
or your teacher decides that you should
have more of this the examples are
education and vaccinations and exercise
the rationale might be that there's an
externality like contagion or the need
of the government to create a an army
they need people to be healthy and so
they will say to the citizens you should
have more of these things like education
or
vaccinations
so the rationale is paternalistic
altruism the idea that person a
wants person B to be happy that's just
altruism and if you're altruistic like
that you just give person B cash and say
to person B spend it on whatever you
want
paternalistic altruism is when person a
wants person B to be happy in the exact
manner defined by person a and so we
don't give person B cash we give person
b a good like the Merit good the food or
the vaccine or medical assistance so
paternalistic altruism is I want you to
be happy in this prescribed way
let's talk about a few more definitions
while we're at it we've got Merit Goods
a good that someone else wants you to
have more of
or rival good is a good that can only be
consumed by one person at a time like a
cookie only one person can eat the
cookie although many people can look at
it one person can eat a cookie that
makes it a rival good
there aren't non-rival Goods where
consumption by person a does not affect
the consumption by person B
that might be the ability to look at the
Moon everybody can look at the Moon
tonight as long as it's night and my
looking at it doesn't interfere with
your ability to look at it
there aren't excludable Goods goods for
which it is possible to exclude people
and keep them from enjoying it people
who didn't pay for the service or the
good can be excluded if we enforce
private property rights non-members can
be excluded non-citizens can be excluded
so excludable Goods uh have the ability
to stop people from enjoying them but
there are non-excludable Goods where
it's not possible to stop people from
enjoying them and looking at the moon is
one of those it's not possible to to
fully stop people from from looking at
the moon
so we can combine these and say that a
pure public good can finally be defined
as a good that is non-rival and
non-excludable that everybody can enjoy
it and you can't stop anybody from
enjoying that makes something a public
good
so here are some leading examples of
public goods in health uh controlling a
contagious disease like covid-19 is
definitely a public good uh that if we
make the covid-19 infection rate go down
everybody who gets to enjoy that
and it's not possible to to say to some
person you're not going to get to enjoy
the control of this contagious disease
controlling environmental health threats
are similar making the air cleaner
making the water cleaner making the
number of rats in the city go away
remember mosquitoes these are things
that are non-rival non-excludable
regulating dangerous consumer products
if something is of poor quality and
dangerous creating institutions that
improve the safety of of products is
something that is a public good and that
same thread safe roads are like that if
we make the roads safer for everybody
it's hard to exclude people from that
you could imagine a toll system but it's
not possible to put a toll on every
single Road
so for us in healthcare
the quality of the health services in a
country is a very special form of a
public good if we create institutions
that make medications safe that make
hospitals safe that make Health Care
Providers safe
in general because these institutions
work in general that is a a public good
if we create safe pills for one person
that's not a public good so if we create
a general institution that improves
Health Quality Healthcare quality that's
a public good and if in general we
protect all of the vulnerable people
from health conditions in our economy
that's also a public good a very special
public good for us in in health
so let's go back to a taxonomy so we
don't forget how to find the public
goods uh the
rival versus non-rival excludable versus
non-excludable so up in the top left
corner we have private Goods they're
rival and they're excludable a
cheeseburger uh is something that is
in the space of private Goods a haircut
if I get a haircut you can't have my
hair cut a personal trainer trains me
and while they're personally training me
they can't train anybody else and I
personal trainer can exclude other
people who didn't pay for their services
a club good
is non-rival but excludable so if I uh
build up a cable TV network
and start beaming uh products over my
cable TV network everybody gets to
watch HBO shows or CNN on the network
but the the Comcast cable company can
exclude non-payers and say you don't get
access unless you pay me and the same
with an HMO if I have a network of
doctors and hospitals in my HMO
I can exclude people who don't pay for
my club and keep them out
uh so I could I could make the HMO
quality excludable but everybody in the
HMO
non-rival list Liberty will enjoy that
uh that good
uh there are non-excludable rival Goods
a trout stream is the best example of a
common pool resource where I take a
trout out of the stream and you can't
have it but unless there's a way to put
a fence all the way around the trout
stream uh then uh it's not excludable
and finally we've already talked about
this last example of non-rival
non-excludable and that's the the pure
public good
so the thing that helps us solve these
problems is to focus on excludability
and often uh the nation or the
government has been the the unit uh that
creates an excludability clause and we
say we have formed a government of our
land and everybody here will enjoy the
public goods of our country we will
provide the most common public good
provided as countries set up is National
Defense
we will
put up an army uh for the public good
for the defense of the people in our
country historically that was super
important because you know 10 000 years
ago that was the big problem that people
would come in from the mountains and
take all your stuff and you need an army
to stop that
so from a Global Perspective National
Defense is is a club good the countries
are clubs they've set up excludability
Clauses and says our citizens are paying
for this Army and we get the army
are there Goods that are public for the
entire planet and the answer is
yeah there are and non-excludability
applying to everybody on the whole
planet that would work for covid-19
eradication that would be a public good
everybody on the planet would benefit
from that achievement and everybody on
the planet would wouldn't be excluded
but there are many many local public
goods that a club could help us with
clean water an altruistic glow from a
poor person getting Health Care
institutions that improve the quality of
care and lowering prevalence of
contagious disease
when you download the PowerPoint version
of these slides just a note to take a
look underneath the notes part of this
slide because I have some extra notes
material about whether altruistic glow
is a local or a global public good so
take a look at that if you have extra
curiosity I thought you might enjoy a
few notes on local versus global
altruistic glow so in our next section
we'll be covering uh how to solve
public goods problems because they they
are in scarcity and short supply
everywhere on Earth and we do need to
solve public goods problems in order to
have a better life
Посмотреть больше похожих видео
Ekoling week 5 - Nilai ekonomi SDAL
Ekonomi Lingkungan - Mekanisme harga pasar dan kegagalan pasar
PUBLIC FINANCE:Public Choice and the Political Process
Market Economy: Crash Course Government and Politics #46
Ekoling Week 4 - Metode Dasar Menilai Barang Lingkungan
Interventionist Supply-Side Policies | A Level Economics
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)