In traditional usage, a global public good (or global good) is a public good available on a more-or-less worldwide basis. There are many challenges to the traditional definition, which have far-reaching implications in the age of

globalization Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...

Definition

In traditional usage, a pure global public good is a good that has the three following properties:Kaul, Inge, Isabelle Grunberg and Marc A. Stern (eds.) (1999). ''Global public goods: international cooperation in the 21st century''. NY: Oxford University Press, Inc.
(PDF available.)
* It is

non-rivalrous In economics, a good is said to be rivalrous or a rival if its consumption by one consumer prevents simultaneous consumption by other consumers, or if consumption by one party reduces the ability of another party to consume it. A good is conside ...

. Consumption of this good by anyone does not reduce the quantity available to other agents. * It is

non-excludable In economics, a good, service or resource are broadly assigned two fundamental characteristics; a degree of excludability and a degree of rivalry. Excludability is defined as the degree to which a good, service or resource can be limited to only ...

. It is impossible to prevent anyone from consuming that good. * It is available more-or-less worldwide. This concept is an extension of American economist

Paul Samuelson Paul Anthony Samuelson (May 15, 1915 – December 13, 2009) was an American economist who was the first American to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. When awarding the prize in 1970, the Swedish Royal Academies stated that he " ...

's classic notion of

public goods In economics, a public good (also referred to as a social good or collective good)Oakland, W. H. (1987). Theory of public goods. In Handbook of public economics (Vol. 2, pp. 485-535). Elsevier. is a good that is both non-excludable and non-riv ...

to the economics of globalization. The traditional theoretical concept of public goods does not distinguish with regard to the geographical region in which a good may be produced or consumed. However, the term "global public good" has been used to mean a public good which is non-rivalrous and non-excludable throughout the whole world, as opposed to a public good which exists in just one national area.

Knowledge Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distin ...

has been used as a classic example of a global public good. In some academic literature, it has become associated with the concept of a common heritage of mankind.

Challenges to the traditional definition

Significant challenges exist to the classical definition of "public goods", in general, that are also relevant to the definition of "global public goods". Kaul et al. (2003), suggest that there are actually three types of public goods.Kaul, Inge et al., (eds.) (2003). ''Providing Global Public Goods: Managing Globalization.'' New York: Published for the United Nations Development Programme (

UNDP The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)french: Programme des Nations unies pour le développement, PNUD is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human dev ...

) by Oxford University Press. First, there are public goods that ''cannot be made excludable'', either because they are inherently indivisible or because the cost of division would be prohibitive. A simple example would be sunlight. Second, there are goods that are inherently ''public by design''. Examples include a nation's

judiciary The judiciary (also known as the judicial system, judicature, judicial branch, judiciative branch, and court or judiciary system) is the system of courts that adjudicates legal disputes/disagreements and interprets, defends, and applies the law ...

system or

basic education According to the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED), basic education comprises the two stages primary education and lower secondary education. Universal basic education Basic education featured heavily in the 1997 ISCED ...

system. A third type, they argue, are goods that are ''public by default'', either due to lack of foresight or knowledge in the design. An example of this type would be the

ozone layer The ozone layer or ozone shield is a region of Earth's stratosphere that absorbs most of the Sun's ultraviolet radiation. It contains a high concentration of ozone (O3) in relation to other parts of the atmosphere, although still small in rel ...

and damage done to the environment by

chlorofluorocarbon Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) are fully or partly halogenated hydrocarbons that contain carbon (C), hydrogen (H), chlorine (Cl), and fluorine (F), produced as volatile derivatives of methane, ethane, and p ...

(CFC) emissions before anyone understood the potential for damage. Many of the challenges to traditional definitions have to do with how to handle

externalities In economics, an externality or external cost is an indirect cost or benefit to an uninvolved third party that arises as an effect of another party's (or parties') activity. Externalities can be considered as unpriced goods involved in either c ...

, which pose fundamental

economic policy The economy of governments covers the systems for setting levels of taxation, government budgets, the money supply and interest rates as well as the labour market, national ownership, and many other areas of government interventions into the ec ...

problems when individuals, households, governments or firms do not include, in their

total cost In economics, total cost (TC) is the minimum dollar cost of producing some quantity of output. This is the total economic cost of production and is made up of variable cost, which varies according to the quantity of a good produced and includes ...

accounting, the

indirect costs Indirect costs are costs that are not directly accountable to a cost object (such as a particular project, facility, function or product). Like direct costs, indirect costs may be either fixed or variable. Indirect costs include administration, p ...

of or the benefits from their economic transactions.Helbling, Thomas (2010)
"What Are Externalities?" ''Finance & Development'', 47(4).
Private goods producers, for example, can lower their total costs, and therefore their

price A price is the (usually not negative) quantity of payment or compensation given by one party to another in return for goods or services. In some situations, the price of production has a different name. If the product is a "good" in the ...

s, by externalizing (not including) certain costs, such as the costs of preventing air or water

pollution Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, th ...

that is a by-product of their production methods. Such a company, then, becomes a corporate free rider, driving up the cost of the "public goods" of clean air and water, which are often transnational resources. The transnational nature of such resources points to another problem with a traditional definition of global public goods. Remedies to problems such as air and water pollution are typically legal remedies, and such laws often exist only in the context of geographically-bounded governmental systems. In the case of global public goods—such as

climate change mitigation Climate change mitigation is action to limit climate change by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases or removing those gases from the atmosphere. The recent rise in global average temperature is mostly caused by emissions from fossil fuels bu ...

, financial stability,

security" \n\n\nsecurity.txt is a proposed standard for websites' security information that is meant to allow security researchers to easily report security vulnerabilities. The standard prescribes a text file called \"security.txt\" in the well known locat ...

, knowledge production, and

global public health Global means of or referring to a globe and may also refer to: Entertainment * ''Global'' (Paul van Dyk album), 2003 * ''Global'' (Bunji Garlin album), 2007 * ''Global'' (Humanoid album), 1989 * ''Global'' (Todd Rundgren album), 2015 * Bruno ...

—either international or supranational legal entities (both public and private) must be created to manage these goods. As different types of global public goods often require different types of legal structures to manage them, this can contribute to a proliferation of

non-governmental organizations A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in ...

(NGOs) and

intergovernmental organization Globalization is social change Social change is the alteration of the social order of a society which may include changes in social institutions, social behaviours or social relations. Definition Social change may not refer to the not ...

s (IGOs), such as has been the case in the recent past. Thus, society can modify the non-rivalry and non-excludability of a good's benefits such that goods often become private or public as a result of deliberate policy choices. New consideration in the face of these challenges can expand the definition to recognize that, in many cases, goods exist not in their original forms but as

social constructs Social constructionism is a theory in sociology, social ontology, and communication theory which proposes that certain ideas about physical reality arise from collaborative consensus, instead of pure observation of said reality. The theory ...

, largely determined by policies and other collective human actions.

Implications

At a time when processes of

are encompassing increasingly more cultural and natural resources, the ways in which global public goods are created, designed, and managed have far-reaching implications. Issues of globalization, today, are precisely those that are beyond the policy endeavors of states, reflecting a mismatch between the scope of the problem and the

authority In the fields of sociology and political science, authority is the legitimate power of a person or group over other people. In a civil state, ''authority'' is practiced in ways such a judicial branch or an executive branch of government.''T ...

of decision-making bodies attempting to address such issues.Kaul, Inge (2012). "Rethinking public goods and global public goods." Pp. 37-54 in Éric Brousseau, Tom Dedeurwaerdere, and Bernd Siebenhüner (eds.), ''Reflexive Governance for Global Public Goods.'' Cambridge, MS: The MIT Press. Many goods that might be ''public by default'' would be best designated at the policy level as

common good In philosophy, economics, and political science, the common good (also commonwealth, general welfare, or public benefit) is either what is shared and beneficial for all or most members of a given community, or alternatively, what is achieved by c ...

s (global-level common-pool resources or

global commons Global commons is a term typically used to describe international, supranational, and global resource domains in which common-pool resources are found. Global commons include the earth's shared natural resources, such as the high oceans, the at ...

), with appropriate regulation, until such time as levels of knowledge, foresight and governing structures might become available to designate such resources as either private or public

goods In economics, goods are items that satisfy human wants and provide utility, for example, to a consumer making a purchase of a satisfying product. A common distinction is made between goods which are transferable, and services, which are not ...

. Although not the only example, no better example can be found than the issue of

potable water Drinking water is water that is used in drink or food preparation; potable water is water that is safe to be used as drinking water. The amount of drinking water required to maintain good health varies, and depends on physical activity level, ...

. Water has always been an important and life-sustaining drink to humans and is essential to the survival of all known organisms. Over large parts of the world, humans have inadequate access to potable water and use sources contaminated with

disease vector In epidemiology, a disease vector is any living agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen to another living organism; agents regarded as vectors are organisms, such as parasites or microbes. The first major discovery of a disease v ...

pathogen In biology, a pathogen ( el, πάθος, "suffering", "passion" and , "producer of") in the oldest and broadest sense, is any organism or agent that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a g ...

s or unacceptable levels of toxins or suspended solids. Drinking or using such water in food preparation leads to widespread

waterborne diseases Waterborne diseases are conditions (meaning adverse effects on human health, such as death, disability, illness or disorders) caused by pathogenic micro-organisms that are transmitted in water. These diseases can be spread while bathing, washin ...

, causing acute and chronic illnesses or death and misery in many countries. While the global

water cycle The water cycle, also known as the hydrologic cycle or the hydrological cycle, is a biogeochemical cycle that describes the continuous movement of water on, above and below the surface of the Earth. The mass of water on Earth remains fairly co ...

is the subject of advanced scientific study and observation, it is still an incompletely understood process. If availability of water for human consumption is left solely to market forces, those who are most in need of water for subsistence-level survival are also those least likely to be able to purchase it at a market price. Since the water cycle and the natural flows of fresh water resources do not obey the limits of political boundaries, neither can these water resources be managed solely by local- or national-level public authorities.

Privatization Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...

of such resources can be used as a method of avoiding contentious public policy-making processes, but is likely to produce inequities. The history of the development of water supply and sanitation in Ecuador and resulting

water conflict Water conflict is a term describing a conflict between countries, states, or groups over the rights to access water resources. The United Nations recognizes that water disputes result from opposing interests of water users, public or private. A ...

s there are an example.Hitz, Julia Apland (2010)
"The Water Conflict in Ecuador." ''State of the planet: blogs from the Earth Institute,'' Columbia University.
/ref> Thoughtful design of transnational or international

water management Water resources are natural resources of water that are potentially useful for humans, for example as a source of drinking water supply or irrigation water. 97% of the water on the Earth is salt water and only three percent is fresh water; sl ...

authorities over such global common-pool resources will play a large part in possible solutions to

peak water Peak water is a concept that underlines the growing constraints on the availability, quality, and use of freshwater resources. Peak water was defined in a 2010 peer-reviewed article in the ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'' by ...

problems. Moreover, there are a number of global public goods—or global-level common-pool resources—that are necessary conditions for continuing global trade and transactions.Brock, Gillian (2009). ''Global Justice: a Cosmopolitan Account.'' NY: Oxford University Press. Even if one takes a position that globalization has more negative impacts than positive, the

economic interdependence Economic interdependence is the mutual dependence of the participants in an economic system who trade in order to obtain the products they cannot produce efficiently for themselves. Such trading relationships require that the behavior of a partici ...

of national-level economies has reached a kind of

point of no return The point of no return (PNR or PONR) is the point beyond which one must continue on one's current course of action because turning back is dangerous, physically impossible or difficult, or prohibitively expensive. The point of no return can be a ...

in terms of continued global economic stability. Thus, continuing global trade and transactions require global public goods such as widespread peace, international economic stability, functioning supranational trade authorities, stable financial and monetary systems, effective law enforcement, relatively healthy populations of consumers and laborers, etc.

References

External links

- analysis from Global Policy Forum {{Globalization, state=autocollapse Goods (economics) Economic globalization Market failure

Definition

Challenges to the traditional definition

Implications

See also

References

Further reading

External links