20 Examples of Free and Economic Goods

They are called goods to physical objects that one or more people can give value to, and this very comprehensive definition invites us to make a large group of differentiations within the category, according to multiple classifications that may exist between different goods:

Free goods

The definition of goods refers to the ability to satisfy human needs. On the capitalist worldIt is common to think that everything that is capable of satisfying some need for people can be appropriated, and then bought and also sold.

However, there are some goods that due to their condition of abundance in nature cannot have an owner, nor a process of appropriation or transformation, and therefore do not have a price: these goods are called free goods. For instance: water, sunlight, sand.

Although when a person thinks about goods, it is difficult for them to imagine free goods soon, they are perfectly adjusted to the fundamental condition that is the satisfaction of needs, even for cases of biological needs on which people’s lives depend.

It is important to note that free goods they do not have a productive transformation, but it may happen that some companies carry out a transformation of it and there it does acquire a sale price: in economics, the original good and the transformed good are two different, the first free and the second economic.

Examples of free goods

The following list shows some examples of free goods, with a clarification: as the condition of free depends on the abundance in nature, it should not be ruled out that at some point a good loses its condition of free.

1. Water
2. Sunlight
3. The sand
4. The sound of a waterfall
5. The rain, in times of drought
6. The stones
7. The image of a sunset
8. The current of a river
9. Fresh air
10. Wind

Enconimics goods

The opposition produced between free and economic goods occurs according to the abundance in nature. The enconimics goods They are those that meet the fundamental characteristic of scarcity, which is why it is frequent that economic goods are also called scarce goods. For instance: oil, taxi, detergent.

The fundamental condition for a good to be considered a scarce good is to have a need greater than availability, according to the axioms of the microeconomic consumer theory: the axiom of non-satiety affirms that the need is always infinite. Since there is less than what is needed, these goods are purchased on the market by paying a price for their use.

All the classifications that are made between the goods, in short, are made with respect to the economic ones that are of interest to the discipline of the economy.

Examples of economic goods

The following list includes ten examples of economic goods, trying to cover the different groups that belong to that category:

1. Bottled mineral water
2. Petroleum
3. A taxi
4. Detergent
5. A box for storing shoes
6. A stock title on the stock exchange
7. A machine for cutting iron
8. Cell phone
9. An airline flight
10. The education service