ABSTRACT
Perhaps the most frequently cited example o f a public good in the literature of public economics — the example “par excellence” — is national defense. Focusing typically on analytical methodology, textbooks routinely note that national defense possesses the essential attributes of a public good:1 it is (a) “nonrival” in that the protection it gives to a resident of a country does not detract from the protection of another resident; and (b) “non-excludable”2 in that no resident of the country can be excluded from benefiting from the protection of national defense, whether he or she contributes directly to the military budget.
