Non Rivalry And Complementarity In Computer Software

In this paper the authors contend that - contrary to what argued by a vast part of the literature - computer software and, more in general, digital goods (i.e. symbolic strings on an electronic medium with some economic value) do not present the characteristics of a public good as they do not suffer from lack of rivarly and excludability any more than other durable goods which are regularly allocated on competitive markets. They argue instead that the "Market allocation problem" - if any - with digital goods does not arise from their public nature but from some peculiar characteristics of the production technology.