Market failure occurs due to inefficiency in the allocation of goods and services. A price mechanism fails to account for all of the costs and benefits involved when providing or consuming a specific good. When this happens, the market will not produce the supply of the good that is socially optimal – it will be over or under produced.
In order to fully understand market failure, it is important to recognize the reasons why a market can fail. Due to the structure of markets, it is impossible for them to be perfect. As a result, most markets are not successful and require forms of intervention.
Reasons for market failure include:
- Positive and negative externalities: an externality is an effect on a third party that is caused by the consumption or production of a good or service . A positive externality is a positive spillover that results from the consumption or production of a good or service. For example, although public education may only directly affect students and schools, an educated population may provide positive effects on society as a whole. A negative externality is a negative spillover effect on third parties. For example, secondhand smoke may negatively impact the health of people, even if they do not directly engage in smoking.
- Environmental concerns: effects on the environment as important considerations as well as sustainable development.
- Lack of public goods: public goods are goods where the total cost of production does not increase with the number of consumers. As an example of a public good, a lighthouse has a fixed cost of production that is the same, whether one ship or one hundred ships use its light. Public goods can be underproduced; there is little incentive, from a private standpoint, to provide a lighthouse because one can wait for someone else to provide it, and then use its light without incurring a cost. This problem - someone benefiting from resources or goods and services without paying for the cost of the benefit - is known as the free rider problem.
- Underproduction of merit goods: a merit good is a private good that society believes is under consumed, often with positive externalities. For example, education, healthcare, and sports centers are considered merit goods.
- Overprovision of demerit goods: a demerit good is a private good that society believes is over consumed, often with negative externalities. For example, cigarettes, alcohol, and prostitution are considered demerit goods.
- Abuse of monopoly power: imperfect markets restrict output in an attempt to maximize profit.
When a market fails, the government usually intervenes depending on the reason for the failure.