Private vs. Public Goods in the UK and Social Welfare

Task 1 Assessment Criteria

ASSESSMENT TOPIC: Private vs. public goods in the UK and social welfare This assessment focused on the difference between private goods, which can be efficiently provided by markets, and public goods and quasi-public goods which markets fail to supply in an equitable way to the public. Merit and demerit goodswill also be considered in order to analyse their positive or negative impacts onsociety, and why government intervention may be required to control access to these goods.

Task 1:

1. Using economics theories from Krugman & Wells textbook (2020, 5th edition), and current UK examples from the past three years (2018-2021), explain why the UK economy requires public, quasi-public, and private goods, giving examples of when the UK market fails to provide access to necessary private goods, why and how the UK government must provide public goods and quasipublic.
2. Analyse examples of when the UK government has difficulty in providing sufficient access to public goods and quasi-public. Explain whether you think UK public spending and UK social welfare programmes do or do not result in fair access to public goods and quasi-public goods. Use relevant examples of UK public, quasi-public, and private goods, providing real-life examples and references from the UK market and UK news from 2018-2020 to support your explanations.

Task One Assessment Criteria - Students must demonstrate:

• Knowledge and understanding of the language of economics.
• Knowledge and understanding of the basic methodology and models used ineconomics and their application to real-world situations.

Task Two Assessment Criteria – Students must demonstrate:

• Knowledge and understanding of the basic methodology and models used in economics and their application to real-world situations.
• Intellectual, practical, effective and transferable skills, which is achievedthrough demonstrating the ability to analyse hypothetical and/or real-world situations that occur in economics.

Task 1, Part 2: “Explain whether you think UK social welfare programmes and UK public spending on public and quasi-public do or do not result in fair access to public goods.”

1. i) Clarification was added to the assignment brief & to the Lecture 9 slides: Addition of language to Task 1, Part 2: quasi-public goods & UK public spending.
2. ii) Clarification of how the students can answer Task 1, Part 2. – “Explain whether you think UK social welfare programmes and UK public spending do or do not result in fair access to public goods and quasi-public goods.”

Quasi-public goods: some rivalry, some exclusion, can be refused. This is a type of public good where there is limited access at times. This is a concept that will help you understand the problems with public goods.

“Quasi” means almost, sort-of, partially. Public goods that aren’t really public since there are limitations due to rivalry, exclusions or refusal that limit accessfor the public. Some public goods that are normally accessible can become quasi-public goods in conditions that limit access, like a national emergency taking up loads of  fire and rescue services, making them unavailable for part of the public for a period of time. Or heavy traffic or an accident making roads in accessible for a period of time. See the list below for more information

“Available evidence suggests that the UK government’s social welfare and policies are not effective to provide fair access to public goods and quasi-public goods to the public. REFERENCE SOURCE (YEAR) provided a report on that analysed  This report showed that when as a quasi-public goods should aim to be equal across the country. Given that it seems that the UK does not currently provide fair access to the quasi-public good of which means improvements can be made.”

(NOTE: Specific data above was removed, you may not copy the above language and you need to do your own research to find real examples)

Consider these problems with public and quasi-public goods:

“Free rider” problem (people using the public goods without paying for them), most people public wish to pay less taxes, some try to avoid paying their taxes, and some people push the government for tax cuts, which puts pressure on UK government in terms of funding public and quasi-public goods.

Non-government initiatives with public and quasi-public goods:

Non-government organisations (NGOs), charities, faith organisations, and volunteers can contribute to provision of public goods and quasi-public goods such as cleaning parks and streets, volunteering to support flood prevention in an area struggling with floods, volunteer school tutors, volunteer neighbourhood watch, fundraising for park or garden facilities improvements.

Task 2:

1. Using economics theories from Krugman & Wells textbook (2020, 5th edition), and current UK examples from the past three years (2018-2021), discuss merit and demerit goods in the UK market. Analyse real-life examples of merit and their positive impacts on society, and contrast this with analysis of demerit goods in the UK and their negative impact on society.
2. Analyse how the UK government used policies and funding to improve access to merit goods, and how it discourages and reduces access to demerit goods, providing real examples of UK government interventions and strategies.
3. Explain whether you believe that the UK government interventions does or did not effectively address the fair provision of merit goods. Include relevant examples and references from the UK from the past three years (2018-2021), UK news, and UK government publications to support your explanations.

Assignment Instructions:

1. The coursework should begin with a cover page, including your student ID,the module name and code, date, coursework title, and your word count. Do not include your name anywhere on the document or in its title to allow for anonymous marking. All pages must be numbered and your student ID should appear at the top of each page (excluding the cover page).
2. Following the cover page, write a brief executive summary that addresses issues in the topic statement above (no more than 200 words). The executivesummary counts within the word limit.
3. Provide both an introduction paragraph and a conclusion paragraph for the full coursework, both of which must also be aligned to your executivesummary.
4. Base your coursework on the content from lectures 1-14 of ARUL Business Economics and the required reading from chapter 1-14 in the Krugman & Wellstextbook textbook on Kortext. Using further relevantcontent from the Krugman & Wells textbook will add to the quality and of your coursework. The textbook is a required reference for this assessment,lack of use of course materials will result in a significant loss of marks.

5. After the conclusion paragraph, you must finish your coursework with a Harvard style list of references or bibliography with the approved data sources in alphabetical order by author surname (only one reference listing per source, regardless of number of times used in the coursework). Students should use at least five different approved data sources listed below and this must include the Krugman & Wells.
6. Plain formatting is preferred throughout. Avoid unnecessary coloured text,or decorative images that are not directly providing data (avoid decorative cover pages as they are not academically necessary or useful). A simple table of contents after the cover page is acceptable but not required. You must check spelling, formatting, graph labels, in-text citations, referencing, and grammar before submission to avoid loss of marks (up to 10% loss for formatting errors).

(Do NOT use any external sources that are not on this list or you will risk the loss of significant marks. These sources provide more than sufficient information to complete the assessment):

1. ARUL Digital Library sources available online (include ARUL website URL for any ARUL Digital Library sources in references)
2. Tutor2U website & videos
3. Investopedia
4. Financial Times newspaper
5. The Guardian newspaper
6. BBC News
7. UK Office of National Statistics
8. UK Government websites ending in “gov.uk” and “parliament.uk” Any data sources used outside of the above may be subject to investigation for plagiarism, possible failure of the assessment, and will result in loss of marks.