Types of goods and their characteristics
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Introduction
Students learn about different types of goods and apply their understanding to categorise goods they consume. This learning is essential to understanding how resources are allocated and the role of government in addressing limitations of a free market economy.
This activity addresses several aspects of economic curriculums across all states and territories. In particular, it provides foundational understanding of the concept of market failure and how governments allocate resources to produce goods and services underprovided by the market system. It also introduces students to the concept of the tragedy of the commons.
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Teacher resources
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Writing paragraphs in Economics
Student learning resources
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Types of goods and their characteristics
What type of good is this?
Public goods and merit goods
Writing paragraphs in Economics
Suggested activity sequence
This sequence is intended as a framework to be modified and adapted by teachers to suit the needs of a class group. If you assign this activity to a class, your students will be assigned all student resources on their 'My learning' page. You can also hand-pick the resources students are assigned by selecting individual resources when you add a work item to a class in 'My classes'.
Part A: Categorising goods
- Students read the explainer. Depending on your students’ levels of readiness, encourage them to use either the reading for meaning technique or the Cornell note taking system as they read.
- Introduce the concept of positive externalities.
- Discuss with students the difference between public goods and merit goods.
- Brainstorm a list of public good and merit goods.
- Students complete the interactive.
- As a class, identify the public and merit goods listed in the activity.
- Discuss with students how they categorised these goods, and if it was difficult to do so and why.
- Discuss the concept of the tragedy of the commons.
- Brainstorm examples of the tragedy of the commons (for example, the Murray Darling basin).
- Students write a quick summary of the meaning of the tragedy of the commons.
Part B: Investigating public goods and merit goods
- Use a grouping strategy to organise students into pairs.
- Pairs complete the investigation.
- Explicitly teach how paragraphs are structured using the paragraph model.
- Students write 2 paragraphs explaining each of the following:
- Why governments intervene in the market to provide public goods and merit goods.
- How and why government spending benefits individuals and the community.