What is an Economic Good?

Learn about Economic Goods with Akshay Kumar
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Movie Case Study

The scene that you saw shows, Tanya Mehra (played by Chitrangda Singh) dancing talks about love. She says love is needed by everyone but everybody doesn’t get it. Those who want it would have put some effort into obtaining it. Jerry (played by Akshay Kumar) relates this concept of love with an economic good.

In this blog, Learning Perspectives explores the meaning of an economic good.

What is an Economic Good?

An economic good is a product or a service that can be sold for a price. As Jerry mentions economic good is a consumable item that is useful to people. He goes on to say, this good is scarce in relation to its demand.

Scarcity means anything that has a limited supply. Scarcity creates value for people, hence they are willing to pay for it. For example, There has been a supply shortage of onions in India many times. This leads to higher prices. In September 2020, the price of onions increased by 170%. Though there were many cartels that further increase the price. Even though prices were higher than usual, consumers still purchased onions.

Goods that are free are not considered to be scarce. Natural resources such as air, sea water, etc. Though natural resources are becoming scarce now.

Jerry mentions that “human effort is required to obtain it, this indicates that free goods are abundant in nature and no real effort is required to obtain them. In the case of economic goods, one needs to make an effort to buy them. This definition that Jerry mentions is by Samuelson, P. Anthony., Samuelson, W. Economics.

Economic goods are classified into Tangible and Intangible. Tangible means something that can be touched. Jerry relates it to Tanya’s bracelet. Also, any good that can be touched, such so apple, mango, kiwi, etc are tangible products.

Intangible goods are those that can be felt. Tanya relates it to love in the scene. Information trademarks, and copyrights are considered to be intangible goods.

Types of Economic Goods

Economic goods are divided on the basis of rivalrous and non-rivalrous. Rivalrous comes from the word ‘rivalry’. This means when one party consumes a good another party has less available for consumption.

Rivalrous are further divided into:

Private Goods:

A good that yields benefits to people. These can include food, clothes, car,s etc.

Common Goods:

These goods are common or natural or human-made. These goods include timber, coal, etc.

Non-Rivalrous are further divided into:

Club goods:

These goods can include private parks, public transport, etc.

Public Goods:

Consumers cannot be barred from using such goods. These goods include free open source software, free-to-air TV

3 Comments

  1. I аm not sure wheгe yoս are getting yօսr infօ,
    but good topic. I neеds to spend some time learning more
    or understаnding more. Thanks for excellent information I was looking for this info for my missіon.

    • As mentioned in the blog, definition of Economic good is by Samuelson, P. Anthony., Samuelson, W. Economics, which is explained in this post.

      I am glad you liked it.

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