One of the hottest controversies among economists remains what constitutes a ‘public good’.

During the 1960s Paul Samuelson described it as one that everyone can consume without diminishing the consumption of anyone else, and impossible to exclude anyone from consuming it. As a classic illustration he mentioned a fireworks display.

Samuelson couldn’t have known about Malta, especially when he asserted that a market economy would undersupply public goods because no one would have an incentive to pay much of anything for them, since they could be consumed for free.

For several years after Samuelson’s paper, economists assumed that the problem of public goods could not be solved unless the government stepped in and provided the goods, using taxes to make everybody pay their share. I am not sure whether this reasoning still prevails now, at least when fireworks are concerned. Certainly not in Malta !

The cursed murtali still terrify people and pets. And politicians of all hues are loath to do something about it.