Public goods commodities

Without good government, establishment of policies directed at promoting food production (rather than just commodity production), appropriate intellectual property policies that assure agricultural technology is publicly available, and fair international trade policies, a discovery that may help farmers and consumers around the world is useless. GE may help Burkina Faso, but only within the framework of a viable public sector that promotes the public good. 

Essential medicines are a public good and not simply just another commodity. Patents for pharmaceuticals should be managed in a balanced manner, protecting the interest of the patent holder yet safeguarding public health principles. Measures consistent with the TRIPS agreement which may be used under specific circumstances to reduce drug prices and increase access include prompt availability of... 

Commodities are pubKc rather than private goods if their consumption is difficult to restrict to those who pay for them. In the case of chemical exposures, public risks are created through air and water pollution that individuals cannot alter. 

There are many polymer chain modification reactions of different types that have been carried out on polymer melts processed in single and twin rotor extruders. This activity, (4-6) in the analysis of polymerization reactors, driven by market forces seeking to create value-added polymers from commodity resins, started in the mid-1960s in industrial research laboratories (7). Indeed much of the early work is to be found in the patent literature.1 Although in recent times more publications, both industrial and academic can be found in the open literature, there is still a good deal of industrial secrecy, because the products of reactive polymer processing are of significant commercial value to industry. Below we will deal briefly with two important examples of such reactions. 

The purpose of economics is, above all, better economic policy, but current economic doctrine surrounding the definition and measurement of well-being is seriously misguided. We have seen that the treatment of all outcomes as commodities is untenable in matters of life and health it is equally inappropriate where policies can affect other constitutive goods - in particular, personal freedom. But it is not only the special attributes of human life that undermine the usefulness of willingness to pay (and benefit-cost analysis generally) as the sole criterion for public policy. A major contention of this book has been that private preferences are just that private. Public policy must be based on public preferences, views... 

People also need good opportunities for recycling and for general environmental improvement. It is often said that people will not commute by public transit, but of course they will not do so if public transit is not available, or if it is shabby, umeliable, and even dangerous. They will not recycle cans, paper, glass, and other consumer commodities if convenient, well-maintained collection sites are not accessible to them. There are encouraging examples, including some from the United States, that opportunities to contribute to environmental protection and resource conservation will be met with a positive response from the public. 

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