Positional Goods: A Diagrammatic Exposition

Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia Politica No. 575

10 Pages Posted: 21 Nov 2009 Last revised: 23 Jul 2014

See all articles by Massimiliano Vatiero

Massimiliano Vatiero

University of Trento; Università della Svizzera italiana

Date Written: October 1, 2009

Abstract

Positional goods and public goods share the characteristic of “publicness” in terms of consumption; i.e., given the consumption of one party, in the case of a positional good, the other must consume a corresponding negative amount of what the first party consumes, while in the case of public good, the other must consume a corresponding positive amount. Hence, we can offer a diagrammatic illustration for positional goods that is similar to the Samuelsonian one for public goods.

Keywords: Positional Good, Externality, Market Failure

JEL Classification: D52, D61, D62

Suggested Citation

Vatiero, Massimiliano, Positional Goods: A Diagrammatic Exposition (October 1, 2009). Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia Politica No. 575, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1510904

Massimiliano Vatiero (Contact Author)

University of Trento ( email )

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Trento, Trento 38122
Italy

Università della Svizzera italiana ( email )

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