WYTWARZANIE DÓBR PUBLICZNYCH A PROBLEM „JAZDY NA GAPĘ

The free-riding phenomenon is of utmost importance to the economists as its occurrence makes it difficult for the markets to produce and allocate public goods effectively. It is especially significant in the case of non-exclusive goods, i.e. in the example where it is impossible or very costly to exclude anybody from consuming the given good. The intensity of free-riding leads to the problems in financing the public goods and makes it often necessary to introduce some costly systems of control. The paper presents the main results of studies dedicated to the economic significance of the free-riding phenomenon. These include both the theoretical (different systems of financing the public projects, different institutional solutions of managing the public goods) and empirical (the results of the experiments) studies.