Free rider problem

What role can torts play when damages are collectively consumed Simple torts are prone to the same free-rider problems that groups face when purchasing emissions rights. If a neighbor successfully sues a company to reduce its emissions, all those who consume the air or water will benefit regardless of whether they contributed to the lawsuit costs. Class-action suits partially remedy the free-rider problem by allowing one suit to represent the diffuse interests of all the beneficiaries. ... 

Simple torts are an inadequate institutional response to public exposures because the benefits of a court decision cannot be restricted to those who bring suit. Class-action torts solve the problem by including as plaintiffs all possible beneficiaries of a successful suit. The use of class action solves the free-rider problem, but all the other trade-offs discussed in the context of torts and private exposures remain. 

Firms would likely face fewer free-rider problems than citizens, but the firms that would benefit most from emissions expansion (potential firms) would face difficulties similar to those faced by citizens. 

Elster, J. (1983) Weakness of will and the free-rider problem, Economics and Philosophy 1,231-66. 

Collective action takes place when a group - for example a class - is capable of acting jointly to further its interests as a group, thus overcoming the free-rider problem (6.2.1). On general grounds, a satisfactory... 

Although there would be no free-rider problem in a society without feudal lords, it would arise in the process of getting rid of them. 

The economic-theoretical concept of "externalities" is used to explain the failure of the National Research Fund (NRF). "The campaign for the NRF was an attempt to finance academic science in which those who paid the costs could not avoid having much of the resulting benefits flow to others"— the "free rider" problem. Eventual government funding of basic research provided a solution to the problem that gained the support of industrial corporations. 

Finally, participation in financial returns may be ineffective in lowering workplace safety costs because of the free rider problem if each worker perceives that his contribution to firm safety is negligible and if safety maintenance is costly, he will let others take care while he does not. But to the extent that others feel this way, no one takes care, and the effects of employee participation on safety outcomes will be muted. Employees will ride for free by benefiting from the system without contributing to it. For example, workers with lower back pain might not file a claim if they thought they would bear the full costs of the claim. But if they were to realize that they would gain the full benefits but share (indirectly) in only a fraction of the costs, they would file. So if the extent of ownership is too small to overcome the free rider problem, moral... 

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