The Free Rider Problem for Group Potlucks

A few weeks ago, my roommates and I decided to have a wholesome brunch at our apartment. We asked for people to bring a dish of their choosing to share with the group. This was definitely a rather large group, about 10 to 15 people. So once people said that they were going to bring things like pancakes, fruit, orange juice, etc., there was not much else on the list for other people to contribute. While it would have been helpful to have duplicates of things, someone else claiming it, thereby checking the box, created an incentive for others to not contribute to the potluck, leading to more scarce resources at the brunch. This is a good example of the free rider problem. While some people spent money to contribute to the potluck, others decided that they could still partake in it without having to bring anything. This relates back to our class discussion of the free rider problem, which we described in class as "the reluctance to contribute to the purchase of goods that bestow group benefits." While we talked about it in relation to Coase and Public goods, I still find it to be applicable here. I would call a group meal in the middle of the spectrum of purely public and purely private goods, because it is not necessarily non-rivalrous (ie one person's consumption does affect the consumption of another), and in practice, it is non-excludable to those within the group (but excludable in that you can invite who you want). While in theory, you can exclude someone you invited from eating if they did not bring anything, the transaction costs are too high (aka that is such an uncomfortable conversation). 

A potluck can definitely be seen as on the public-private good spectrum, and the knowledge that others will contribute incentivizes others to not contribute. Utility is most maximized for the individual who did not have to spend any money but still gets to partake in the food, but if everyone maximized their utility in this way, there would be no food at all! One thing I thought about when examining this issue is the idea that the more people there are in a group, the more rampant the free rider problem is. This link presents a study by an economist who asserts that despite conventional wisdom, the free rider problem is not necessarily affected by group size. While this can be true in some cases, in my particular one, I think if less people came then people would feel more pressure to contribute because it would be more noticeable if someone did not contribute. To alleviate the free rider problem for potlucks for the next time, we can act as rule makers and assert that everyone who is invited must bring something, to make it fair for everyone who participates.