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In economics, free goods are goods whose quantity is sufficient to satisfy all our human wants and are

not scarce. For free goods, more of them are not preferred. The opportunity cost to the society of acquiring a free good is zero, which means, we do not need to give up anything in order to get one. No one is willing pay for the goods. Under any circumstances, the quantity supplied of a free good is greater than its quantity demanded. It is a concept contrary to economic goods. Fresh air in grasslands and sea water in the ocean are two examples of free goods. Comparatively, all goods and services we bought and sold in the market are economic goods. However, a free newspaper that is made available at zero price is not necessarily a free good. The reasons are as follows: i. The production of a free newspaper requires the use of scarce resources, for example, papers and ink used in printing newspaper and the money paid to the journalists. Since these resources are limited, we have to give up producing other things, like printing a charged newspaper, when we print a free newspaper. In other words, something has to be forgone in the production process of free newspapers. This involves opportunity cost. Therefore, a free newspaper is actually an economic good but not a free good. More free newspapers are preferred. As most of us know, there are many elderly waiting outside the gates of the MTR stations, asking travellers to give them their free newspaper or pass one to them. However, they are not satisfied with just one newspaper. They want as many as possible. It is because they can sell the newspaper to waste paper collectors in return for money. In this case, we can see that more of the free newspapers are preferred to less. So it is not a free good as it violates one of the characteristics of free goods. If a free newspaper becomes a free good, it should meet the following criteria: i. The production of free newspaper does not involve any opportunity cost. That means we do not need to give up anything or use scarce resources such as papers and ink to produce a free newspaper. Alternatively, news reports, papers and ink become free goods at the same time. ii. Free newspapers are so abundant that no one prefers more of them. If the free newspapers quantity is so sufficient just like the sea water in ocean that no one would like to have more of it, they will be considered as free goods. However, as a rational person should know, these two criteria would never be met. To conclude, a free newspaper is an economic good.

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