[BCPVP]

Bear in mind, I'm getting this info from my econ book.

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It makes me wonder what is a "commonly-shared" resource.

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I'll start with this one because it'll help answer your first question. The book says examples of a commonly-shared resource could be something like the ocean or the fish in the sea. No one "owns" the fish in the sea, and because of that there is little incentive to prevent overfishing by any one person. That's what I described as the "problem of the commons" earlier.

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Not to sound like PVN, but why are airwaves considered a common resource, or, for that matter, owned by the government? Since civilians discovered television and the use of the airwaves, should it not follow that the airwaves are private?

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My econ book's author would probably say because there is a finite number of airwaves (I think that's true but I could be wrong) and there's not much to keep some person from buying up a large chunk of them, the government has declared them a common resource and assigns property rights by auctioning off particular frequencies.

Does that help at all?