Further, awareness of the local rate and its impact on risk, is not a necessary condition for free riding to occur ( Cornes & Sandler, 1996). For vaccinations, the free rider problem arises when increasing local vaccination rates reduce disease risk and, if unvaccinated individuals are aware of the local vaccination rate, then they may have less incentive to decide to vaccinate ( Boulier et al., 2007). The free-rider problem is key to economic theories explaining public good provision. once Maria has been vaccinated, she cannot exclude others from benefitting from her decision) to all community members. the benefits from Maria having been vaccinated do not deplete as additional people come in contact with Maria, also benefitting from her vaccination) and non-exclusive benefits (i.e. Vaccinations are considered a public good because they provide non-rival benefits (i.e. The current prevailing theory for understanding spatial patterns of vaccination comes from economics and focuses on the role of local vaccination rates. In contrast, economists have focused on the role of community-level vaccination rates ( Boulier, Datta, & Goldfarb, 2007 Geoffard & Philipson, 1997), but have typically overlooked the role of individual beliefs and social influences. However, these theories typically do not consider the role of community-level vaccination rates in changing individuals' incentives to become vaccinated. Health behavior researchers have proposed theories that focused on individual's intention, beliefs and motivations (e.g., Brewer & Fazekas, 2007). The potential importance of spatial patterns in vaccination uptake in understanding how policy might influence vaccination rates for non-mandatory vaccines, such as the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, are largely unaddressed by prevailing theories of vaccine uptake.īecause vaccination is important both at individual and community levels, there have been many efforts to understand an individual's vaccination decisions and the resulting population-level patterns of vaccination. For example, geographic clustering of individuals refusing to vaccinate despite governmental mandates has been linked to outbreaks of measles, a disease once considered eradicated in developed countries ( Ferris, 1/28/15). For example, some individuals in a team or community may reduce their contributions or performance if they believe that one or more other members of the group may free ride.Due to the method of transmitting communicable diseases, gains from effective vaccination programs are inherently geographic in nature and are not necessarily distributed evenly across space. Īlthough the term "free rider" was first used in economic theory of public goods, similar concepts have been applied to other contexts, including collective bargaining, antitrust law, psychology, political science, and vaccines. In each of these examples, the cost of excluding non-payers would be prohibitive, while the collective consumption of the resource does not decrease how much is available. The number of viewers, whether they paid for the entertainment or not, does not diminish the fireworks as a resource. A third example of non-excludable and non-rivalrous consumption would be a crowd watching fireworks. Another example is if a coastal town builds a lighthouse, ships from many regions and countries will benefit from it, even though they are not contributing to its costs, and are thus "free riding" on the navigation aid. Ī free rider may enjoy a non-excludable and non-rivalrous good such as a government-provided road system without contributing to paying for it. These characteristics of a public good result in there being little incentive for consumers to contribute to a collective resource as they enjoy its benefits. Non-rival consumption stipulates that the use of a good or service by one consumer does not reduce its availability for another consumer. Non-excludable means that non-payers cannot be stopped from getting use of or benefits from the good. The free-rider problem is common with public goods which are non-excludable and non-rivalrous. Such an example is the free-rider problem of when property rights are not clearly defined and imposed. The free-rider problem in social science is the question of how to limit free riding and its negative effects in these situations. Market failure benefitting non-paying users
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