ARE PUBLIC-GOODS MYTHS

This paper makes the case that nonrivalness and nonexcludability prope rties of public goods are still relevant and crucial considerations. A lthough these characteristics of publicness may be socially endogenous with institutional choice, these properties are not necessarily deter mined by this choice. For club goods, a wide range of institutional st ructures are consistent with the same properties of publicness. Even w hen these publicness properties are endogenous, the resulting characte ristics of the public good are still important for comparing equilibri um outcomes with social optima. Although public good theory has been m isused by some to support public provision of such goods, this misuse does not mean that the modem theory is devoid of interest.