Can you give an operational definition (or concrete example) of the free rider ‘problem’? There are a couple of different things that you might not like about the phenomenon, and I’m not sure exactly which is the problem you’re concerned about.
Exclusion is the most common “solution” (auctions and “fair” divisions being specific allocation mechanisms within that). Don’t let “free riders” actually ride, and there’s no problem.
Exclusion isn’t always socially appropriate. If I take a cab home everyday (which I pay for), and a friend can literally take a free ride because her place is on the way, should I “exclude” her if she doesn’t want to share the cost? She claims it doesn’t cost me extra, I’d be paying for the cab anyway if she lived somewhere else.
But of course I can come up with un-excludable externalities:
I share a house that’s in pretty bad shape, and I decide to get some fresh painting done. This is a net benefit to all the housemates, but we would value them differently. I want this slightly more than all the others. So I have to pay the entire amount.
Sure, that’s why I asked you to describe what the “problem” you want to address is. Free stuff isn’t a problem for recipients. Some providers consider it a problem, but IMO it’s usually a different problem than they think.
The cab driver may be sad that they didn’t get revenue from the second rider, and consider that to be a big problem. Your housemates may not consider old paint a problem, and almost certainly don’t consider free paint to be a problem. You or your housemates may or may not consider jealousy or bad feelings about “fairness” to be problems.
See also: kickstarter—everyone pledges what they want, nobody pays unless the funding minimum is met.
For your side of the painting problem (you want new paint, and suspect your housemates do too, but you’re not willing to pay for the whole thing), auction design can likely work. If you demand equality, it’s easy—everyone agrees to pay their share or the painting doesn’t happen. If you don’t, then everyone secretly writes down the amount they’re willing to pay, and if the pot covers the painting, do it. Any extra gets refunded proportionally (or spent on better paint).
I guess it’s worth mentioning one common “solution”: extortion/taxation. Threaten to punish people who don’t pay what you think they owe. Usually combined with opacity and not telling anyone exactly how their payments are spent.
This is not really a solution though, because it’s not incentive compatible. There’s nothing to ensure that the extortionist will spend the money on providing the desired goods, and attempts at creating such incentives must ultimately fail for the same underlying reasons as the original problem. (This is of course assuming no excludability—if a club owner can ban some members from her club and invite others to join for a fee, she is incented to manage the club to the members’ benefit, for standard Coasian reasons!)
It’s a solution for the extortionist, and that’s who is experiencing free riding as a problem.
Threatening your housemates that you’ll replace them if they don’t pony up for painting or threatening jail if a resident doesn’t pay taxes could be done by bad actors (and IMO often is), but that’s only a difference in purpose, not in activity. Extortion is, by it’s very nature, incentive-compatible with collecting revenue: its only aim is to provide incentive for the freeloaders to pay.
Can you give an operational definition (or concrete example) of the free rider ‘problem’? There are a couple of different things that you might not like about the phenomenon, and I’m not sure exactly which is the problem you’re concerned about.
Exclusion is the most common “solution” (auctions and “fair” divisions being specific allocation mechanisms within that). Don’t let “free riders” actually ride, and there’s no problem.
Exclusion isn’t always socially appropriate. If I take a cab home everyday (which I pay for), and a friend can literally take a free ride because her place is on the way, should I “exclude” her if she doesn’t want to share the cost? She claims it doesn’t cost me extra, I’d be paying for the cab anyway if she lived somewhere else.
But of course I can come up with un-excludable externalities:
I share a house that’s in pretty bad shape, and I decide to get some fresh painting done. This is a net benefit to all the housemates, but we would value them differently. I want this slightly more than all the others. So I have to pay the entire amount.
Sure, that’s why I asked you to describe what the “problem” you want to address is. Free stuff isn’t a problem for recipients. Some providers consider it a problem, but IMO it’s usually a different problem than they think.
The cab driver may be sad that they didn’t get revenue from the second rider, and consider that to be a big problem. Your housemates may not consider old paint a problem, and almost certainly don’t consider free paint to be a problem. You or your housemates may or may not consider jealousy or bad feelings about “fairness” to be problems.
See also: kickstarter—everyone pledges what they want, nobody pays unless the funding minimum is met.
For your side of the painting problem (you want new paint, and suspect your housemates do too, but you’re not willing to pay for the whole thing), auction design can likely work. If you demand equality, it’s easy—everyone agrees to pay their share or the painting doesn’t happen. If you don’t, then everyone secretly writes down the amount they’re willing to pay, and if the pot covers the painting, do it. Any extra gets refunded proportionally (or spent on better paint).
I guess it’s worth mentioning one common “solution”: extortion/taxation. Threaten to punish people who don’t pay what you think they owe. Usually combined with opacity and not telling anyone exactly how their payments are spent.
This is not really a solution though, because it’s not incentive compatible. There’s nothing to ensure that the extortionist will spend the money on providing the desired goods, and attempts at creating such incentives must ultimately fail for the same underlying reasons as the original problem. (This is of course assuming no excludability—if a club owner can ban some members from her club and invite others to join for a fee, she is incented to manage the club to the members’ benefit, for standard Coasian reasons!)
It’s a solution for the extortionist, and that’s who is experiencing free riding as a problem.
Threatening your housemates that you’ll replace them if they don’t pony up for painting or threatening jail if a resident doesn’t pay taxes could be done by bad actors (and IMO often is), but that’s only a difference in purpose, not in activity. Extortion is, by it’s very nature, incentive-compatible with collecting revenue: its only aim is to provide incentive for the freeloaders to pay.