Free rider problem
In
economics,
collective bargaining, and
political science,
free riders are actors who consume more than their fair share of a resource, or shoulder less than a fair share of the costs of its production. The
free rider problem is the question of how to prevent free riding from taking place, or at least limit its negative effects.
Because the notion of 'fairness' is controversial, free riding is usually only considered to be an economic "problem" when it leads to the non-production or under-production of a
public good, and thus to
Pareto inefficiency, or when it leads to the excessive use of a
common property resource.
A common example of a free rider problem is
defense spending: no person can be excluded from being defended by a
state's
military forces, and thus free riders may refuse or avoid paying for being defended, even though they are still as well guarded as those who contribute to the state's efforts. Therefore, it is usual for the government to avoid relying on volunteer donations, using
taxes and
conscription instead.
In the labor union context, a free rider is an employee who pays no
union dues or
agency shop fees, but nonetheless receives the same benefits of union representation as dues-payers. Under U.S. law, unions owe a
duty of fair representation to all workers they represent, regardless of whether they pay dues. Some jurists, including
Antonin Scalia have questioned the fairness, if not the legality, of this practice
*
Freighthopping,
*
Stowaway,
*
Public good,
*
CrimethInc,
*
Tragedy of the commons,
*
Assurance contracts,
*
Malibu surfer problem,
*
Prisoner's Dilemma,
*
TANSTAAFL,
*
Welfare state.
*Richard Cornes and Todd Sandler,
The Theory of Externalities, Public Goods and Club Goods 2nd ed. (1996)
*Joshi Venugopal,
Drug imports: the free-rider paradox, Express Pharma Pulse, (2005), 11(9), 8. This article refers to the free-rider problem in global pharmaceutical research.[
1]
*Antonin Scalia, in dissenting opinion in
Lehnert v. Ferris Faculty Assn., 500 U.S. 507 (1991)[
2]
*
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry*
Criticism of Theory
