Consumption, production, and investment decisions of individuals, households, and firms often affect people not directly involved in the transactions. Sometimes these indirect effects are tiny. But ...

Most economic externalities can be efficiently solved through a system of private property rights, in which costs and ...

Externalities are the incidental effects that the activities or actions of one party have on another party. Positive externalities occur when the actions of a person or entity have a positive impact ...

Wine growers everywhere fear spring frosts. New vine buds emerge in the spring and are highly susceptible to freezing temperatures which can kill them and result in significant crop loss for the year.

The economic doctrine of “externalities” has become an excuse for governments to intervene economically in heavy-handed ways, all in the name of “saving” the ...

We economists are often faulted for having a language all our own, usually unintelligible to common mortals. (To be fair, our discipline is not unique in this: many think the language of lawyers is ...

An externality is a cost or benefit related to the production or consumption of a good or service that affects third parties unrelated to the production or consumption. It is generally the unintended, ...

Julia Kagan is a financial/consumer journalist and former senior editor, personal finance, of Investopedia. Thomas J Catalano is a CFP and Registered Investment Adviser with the state of South ...