positive externality

positive externality, in economics, a benefit received or transferred to a party as an indirect effect of the transactions of another party. Positive externalities arise when one party, such as a business, makes another party better off but does not receive any compensation for doing so. Although positive externalities are usually benign, externalities in general, which can be either positive or negative (costly, in monetary or broader terms), represent a form of market failure resulting in inefficient market outcomes, meaning that not all of the costs and benefits related to the transaction are limited to the buyer and the seller. The externality is not reflected in the market price of the products or services being bought or sold, and the scale at which the externalities are produced is not determined by how much the producing parties would gain or lose by producing them. Positive externalities are likely to be underproduced, because the parties involved receive no compensation for producing them. (Likewise, negative externalities are likely to be overproduced, because the producing parties do not bear any corresponding cost or penalty.) Positive and negative externalities that significantly affect society as a whole are a major focus of government spending and taxation.

Prices in competitive markets are generally determined by the laws of supply and demand. Producers of goods or services tend to continue producing them if buyers are willing to pay more than the production cost. At the same time, consumers tend to continue paying for goods and services if the price is below the perceived marginal utility (personal value) that the goods or services will provide. In an ideal (perfectly efficient) market, goods and services are produced to maximize the combined economic benefit experienced by the producers, who gain a profit, and the consumers, who gain utility.

In the case of positive externalities, the pricing of the good or service from which the externality results does not accurately represent the item’s economic value, because a third party enjoys some gain in utility without acting as a buyer or seller. For example, homeowners may hire a business to clear snow and ice from the sidewalks in front of their houses. The homeowners benefit from safer sidewalks, and the business benefits from the profit derived from the fees it charges. However, the homeowners’ neighbors also benefit from the safer sidewalks, though they are not a party to the transaction. Because the price of the service does not take into account the benefit to the homeowners’ neighbors, it does not accurately represent the service’s potential economic value, and the business is not compensated for the additional benefits resulting from the transaction.

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Positive externalities can be divided into two broad—and sometimes overlapping—categories: production externalities and consumption externalities. A positive production externality occurs when the production of a good or service itself results in benefits to third parties—for example, when a company tears down an abandoned building and constructs a new office or apartment building that enhances the surrounding community. Benefits to residents of the surrounding community may include the building’s pleasant appearance or perhaps an increase in home values due to the perceived desirability of living in the neighborhood. The firm constructing the building is not compensated for these benefits, which reduces (but need not eliminate) the chance that such a building will be constructed.

A positive consumption externality occurs when the consumption of a good benefits others, such as when individuals receive a vaccine and thereby reduce the chance that they will spread disease in their community. Individuals who would get themselves vaccinated if the cost were partially or wholly borne by the community might not do so if they have to bear all of the cost themselves, in which case the community would be harmed if they were to fall ill.

The British economist Arthur Cecil Pigou (1877–1959) suggested that the problems posed by externalities could be solved or prevented if the government were to “internalize the externality” by using spending or taxation policies to affect prices. Essentially, in this scenario, the government acts as the third party affected by the externality and either demands payment for a negative externality or provides payment for a positive externality. Pigou’s idea is most famously applied in so-called Pigouvian taxes, in which the government applies a tax to compensate for a negative externality (for example, a tax on carbon emissions). The same logic applies to government subsidies for goods or services that have positive externalities. For example, homeowners might not find it cost-efficient to install solar panels on their houses. However, the benefits to the community resulting from the increased use of renewable energy—a positive externality—might justify government subsidies to homeowners for the purchase of solar panels.