Excludability

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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 when it is not possible to do so.

[edit] Examples

An architecturally-pleasing building, such as Tower Bridge, creates an aesthetic non-excludable good, which can be enjoyed by anyone who happens to look at it. It is difficult to prevent people from gaining this benefit (although people have tried, by forbidding amateurs from taking photographs of certain sites [1])

A lighthouse acts as a navigation aid to ships at sea in a manner that is non-excludable.

An excludable good could be a magazine; people who do not pay for the subscription are mostly excluded from obtaining a copy directly from the publisher. Another case in point is a pay television subscription.

[edit] See also

	Excludable	Non-excludable
Rivalrous	Private goods food, clothing, toys, furniture, cars	Common goods / (Common-pool resources) water, fish, hunting game
Non-rivalrous	Club goods cable television	Public goods national defense, free-to-air television, air
Private and public goods

• Rivalry (economics)
• Free rider problem

[edit] Further Reading

Excludability, World Bank. Last accessed 29 May 2007.

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. substitute good free good vs. 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