[nonbel]

>"And we are willing to pay for it, but only if we have no way to personally avoid the obligation ourselves. And the same is true of our peers. We're an entire civilization of would-be free riders. So we're stuck because nobody will personally commit to pay unilaterally, even though we all want to. So how do we make ourselves happy? How do we get together and sign a contract to pay for it, without defecting on each other?"

How do people get together to invest in anything in this world you describe? How do you get 100 people to invest in your real estate venture without defecting on each other?

Sorry, but I don't see it. It seems like a solved "problem", even when there is no desire guaranteed to be fulfilled at the end.

[jbay]

In my real estate venture, the dividends are paid exclusively to the investors who are my shareholders. So there are no free riders; the people who don't invest don't get the same benefits as those who do. For ventures like this, we don't need the government to coordinate anything.

For projects like waste treatment plants, it's very hard or impossible to ensure that only the "investors" (ie, people who volunteered to fund it) get the benefit. If the waste gets treated, the tapwater is safe to drink, that weird smell in the streets goes away, the coliform count goes down, the beaches are open for swimming in the summer, and fewer people get sick. That's wonderful but how do we limit the benefits to the shareholders of the waste treatment plant, so as to convince people to invest in it?

[nonbel]

>"In my real estate venture, the dividends are paid exclusively to the investors who are my shareholders. So there are no free riders; the people who don't invest don't get the same benefits as those who do."

The investors don't care if there are free riders as long as they get the expected benefits. The neighboring property values may rise, for example.

>"That's wonderful but how do we limit the benefits to the shareholders of the waste treatment plant, so as to convince people to invest in it?"

I just can't get past this. This is just not something I consider in any way when choosing to make an investment/donation. I simply do not care if other people may benefit, that is not my concern.

I mean lets take a smaller task:

Say I feel like doing the dishes so I can have a clean plate later in the day. Once I get going with doing dishes, its not a hassle to finish them.

Should I be upset if someone else uses one of the dishes I cleaned? Should I not do the dishes, even if I want to, because eventually someone else may do them? If it was likely for someone else to take care of it, why hasn't it already been done?

[jbay]

I'm not sure why this concept is such a challenge for me to convey. I'm probably not doing a very good job of it.

The investors aren't particularly concerned about small positive externalities such as the increase in surrounding property values. (If the positive externalities are very large, they would probably attempt to capture them somehow -- such as buying up the whole neighbourhood before proceeding with the development. This is why profitable train companies in Asia build train lines to where they own the land, and develop the area around their stations into shopping malls and residential complexes).

That's very different than having free riders. If you give your investors the option of paying $100 per share, or $0 per share, and in either case they'll get the same number of shares, then you suddenly won't find any investors willing to pay. Even if it's a profitable endeavour at $100 per share!

Why would you be offering such a strange deal to your investors? Well, you wouldn't, because it would totally undermine your ability to get your project funded. But it's exactly the model you're proposing when you suggest that private citizens might donate to the government if they really want public infrastructure to get funded! The ones who don't donate are paying $0/share, and the ones who do are paying $100/share, and they all get equal use of the infrastructure.

The free rider problem is not when you try to get investors to buy into your project, even though a few people who don't buy in will also benefit slightly. It's when you try to get investors to buy into your project, even though anybody who doesn't buy in benefits just as much.

Having said this, now let me put it in the context of your quote:

> "This is just not something I consider in any way when choosing to make an investment"

When you consider purchasing shares of a company for $100/share, do you not consider in any way the possibility that these shares might be available for a lower price from another seller? I would expect you would do research and pay the lowest price that is on offer. And if someone is offering them for $0/share, wouldn't you consider that when deciding whether or not to pay $100?

edit: Let me bring this back to the example. How are you going to pitch investors to pay to upgrade a water treatment plant, when they'll reap exactly the same gains from it as their neighbours who didn't contribute a dime? Or, after attempting this and failing to raise any funds whatsoever, let alone the required $500 million, how might you alter your fundraising strategy to make it more successful?

To simplify, let's assume that every one of the 5 million citizens has equal wealth, and the identical preferences, and is willing contribute up to at most $200 for this project, but prefers to pay the minimum possible amount and will always opt to pay $0 if the treatment plant gets built regardless.

[nonbel]

>"But it's exactly the model you're proposing when you suggest that private citizens might donate to the government if they really want public infrastructure to get funded! The ones who don't donate are paying $0/share, and the ones who do are paying $100/share, and they all get equal use of the infrastructure."

Why do people donate nearly a billion dollars per year to American Heart Association (https://www.forbes.com/companies/american-heart-association/...) even though I won't, but I could still get the same benefit for free? Because my benefit is irrelevant to their decision...

The only time it makes sense to care about someone else benefiting for free is if it means you are benefiting less for the same price. This concern about free riders is irrational.

>"And if someone is offering them for $0/share, wouldn't you consider that when deciding whether or not to pay $100?"

I'd take the free shares and then go ahead with the purchase for $100/share as well. Edit: Actually, best thing to do is take the free shares, then dump them on the market. Then use the original funds to buy more shares at a lower price.

>"How are you going to pitch investors to pay to upgrade a water treatment plant, when they'll reap exactly the same gains from it as their neighbours who didn't contribute a dime?"

Explain the benefits of the plant, telling them to see if they can get any of the neighbors to contribute too so it will be cheaper for them (nb: the price per person becomes more favorable, not the benefits). And anyway, you can always charge people for the water later so this example is not even very good...