Private good
A private good is defined in economics as a good that exhibits these properties:
- Excludable (also referred in this context as rivalry) - cannot be consumed by everybody since consumption by one person reduces or excludes consumption by another.
- Rivalrous (it is finite).
A private good is the opposite of a public good, as they are almost exclusively made for profit.
An example of the private good is bread: there is a finite amount of it, and bread eaten by a given person cannot be consumed by another.
One of the most common way of looking at goods in economy, illustrated in the table below, is the classic division based on:
- is there a competition involved in obtaining a given good
- whether it is possible to exclude a person from consumption of a given good
| Excludable | Non-excludable | |
|---|---|---|
| Rivalrous | Private goods eg. food, clothing, parking spaces |
Common-pool resources eg. fish stocks, timber |
| Non-rivalrous | Club goods eg. cinemas, software, private parks |
Public goods eg. free-to-air television, air, national defense |