Private goods are typically traded in markets. Buyers and sellers meet through the price mechanism. If they agree on a price, the ownership or use of the good (or service) can be transferred. Thus private goods tend to be excludable. They have clearly identified owners; and they tend to be rival. For example, others cannot enjoy a piece of cake, once consumed.

Public goods have just the opposite qualities. They are non-excludable and non-rival in consumption. An example is a street sign. It will not wear out, even if large numbers of people are looking at it; and it would be extremely difficult, costly and highly inefficient to limit its use to only one or a few persons and try to prevent others from looking at it too. A traffic light or clean air is a further example.

These are a very special class of goods which cannot practically be withheld from one individual consumer without withholding them from all, and for which the marginal cost of an additional person consuming them, once they have been produced, is zero . The classic example of a nearly pure public good is national defence: you cannot defend the vulnerable border regions of a country from the ravages of foreign invaders without also simultaneously defending everyone else who lives within the borders. Conservation of wildlife is another public good that is becoming more important locally, nationally and globally. Wildlife in this context may be considered to be a public heritage asset.

The inability of potential providers to exclude people who refuse to pay from nevertheless consuming and benefitting from an expensive public good, usually means that very many of the consumers of the good will act as free riders and choose not to help pay for its provision. Consequently private production of the good or service may prove unprofitable, and the good or service thus may not be provided at all by the free market, even though everyone might concede they would be better off with some positive level of production of the good in question.

Actually, the public goods problem is not quite as hopeless as the simple version of the theory makes it sound. Various social arrangements have evolved to encourage the provision of public goods. The non-profit "third sector" of the economy devotes considerable effort to the provision of public goods financed by voluntary contributions that are motivated by appeals to people's "civic conscience" (or to their desire for the honours and respect that the community spontaneously accords to "public benefactors"). Voluntary contributions may also be gathered from those people most intensely and deeply concerned about the particular social need being addressed, or from those who can be "shamed" into it by informal social pressures that withdraw status and respect from people identified and stigmatized as free riders.

In addition to these non-profit approaches, the provision of public goods may often be handled through ordinary market forces if some way can be found to link the consumption of the public good to the consumption of some other good that does not suffer from the "non- excludability" problem and hence can generate a profit. A shopping mall offers good examples of such "tying" arrangements. The mall management provides such public goods to shoppers as security protection, a clean and pleasant environment, public water fountains and rest rooms, entertainment, etc. without direct charges -- but, since these amenities attract larger crowds of customers to the mall and increase sales for the stores located there, the mall's owners are able to command higher rents from their tenants.

It should also be noted that at least a partial provision of public goods often occurs when there is a single person (or a rather small group of persons) who feel they stand to benefit personally from a particular public good, to such an unusually large degree that it is worthwhile for them to go ahead and just pay for the whole thing, while ignoring the many other small-time free riders as irrelevant.

The classic "solution" to the problem of under-provision of public goods has been government funding through compulsory (often, but not necessarily, accompanied by actual government agency production of the good or service in question). Although this may substantially alleviate the problem of numerous 'free riders' that refuse to pay for the benefits they nevertheless love to receive, it should be noted that the political process does not provide any very plausible method for determining what the "optimal" level of provision of a public good actually is. When we cannot observe what individuals are willing to give up in order to get the public good, how can we (or the politicians) assess how urgently they really want more or less of it, given the other possible uses of their money? So any given public good will still most likely be either under- provided or over- provided under government stewardship. 

This poses immediately the question of who, then, provides public goods. Once they exist, they are there for all to enjoy. So it is often the most rational strategy for private actors to let others go first and seek to enjoy the good without contributing to its production. This is a dilemma, that public goods face. Without some sort of collective-action mechanism, they risk being under- provided. Conversely, without collective action, public bads - such as pollution, noise, street crime, risky bank lending, and so on - would be over-provided.

Global public goods are public goods whose benefits reach across borders, generations and population groups. They form part of the broader group of international public goods, which include as another sub- group, regional public goods.

To make the notion of a global public good more concrete, consider, for example, the eradication of small pox. Once accomplished, the whole of humanity benefits - people in all parts of the globe, present as well as future generations, rich and poor. Similarly, if the international community were to succeed in ensuring peace, everyone would be able to enjoy it. Much the same holds true for well-functioning international markets. And averting the risk of global climate change would secure inter-generational as well as geographically widespread benefits, although people in various parts of the world might benefit in different ways. Similarly, international regimes such as those for civil aviation, postal services, and telecommunications, or those recognising a document such as a passport, all have significant properties of "global publicness".

At the national level, states often step in to facilitate the collective action needed to avoid over- production of public bads, or under-provision of public goods. Internationally, there is no such institution. Yet as history has shown, if global public goods do correspond to national needs and self-interest, states do manage to reach agreement on coordinated action. But as shown in this article, international cooperation so far has primarily been concerned with relations between countries and at-the-border issues. Now the challenge is to motivate countries not to let public bads spill across their borders and turn from national public bads into global public bads. This requires behind-the-border policy harmonisation, and places added demands on states’ willingness to cooperate. International cooperation is increasingly a global 'give and take', and so probably a harder bargain than previously.

Therefore, it is essential to recognise that the publicness of a good does not automatically imply that all people value it in the same way. Poor people, who cannot afford to travel, may not place the highest value on an international passport regime. They may give preference to ensuring global health or to truly free trade so that their goods can also find new markets. Other people may rank the control of international terrorism or stability of international financial markets highest. In establishing a global public goods agenda, it is, therefore, important to ensure that the top priorities of different population groups are being considered equitably.

Also, global public goods must not be allowed to further exacerbate existing inequities. Although public, some may not be accessible to the poor. The internet poses this challenge. And others, such as a free trade regime in an unequal world, may give rise to a winner-take-all situation. If these concerns are neglected, people’s and states’ willingness to cooperate will suffer - and so will global public goods. Equity is an important element of an effective global public goods strategy.

But beyond its instrumental value, equity is itself is a global public good. It is non-rival, in the sense that if one person is being treated equitably that does not diminish the chance of another person also to be treated in the same way. On the contrary, the more accepted the principle and practice of equity is, the more confident can other persons be that they will also benefit from fairness and justice. And once accepted as a norm like other global norms and principles such as human rights, equity is non-excludable. Once accepted as a norm, it must, by definition, apply to all peoples in all places. Otherwise, the norm would falter and injustice rear its ugly head again. Therefore, equity is best - and most predictably - ensured globally, as a universal principle.

Non-state actors, both civil society and business, contribute to the provision of public goods, including global public goods, from human rights to technical norms. Interestingly, non-state actors also were often the ones, who have drawn attention to the importance of balancing the globalisation of private activities with that of public goods. State actors seem to be more constrained, maybe due to the territorial definition of nation states. An added reason to link global public goods closely to national interests. And also a reason to consider the need for more tripartite international forums in which state actors as well as non-state, transnational actors could jointly debate how to balance private goods with public goods. People’s well- being depends on this balance. Even the wealthiest person cannot do without public goods, including global public goods. Neither can markets. To function efficiently, they need property rights, legal institutions, nomenclature, educated people, peace and security.

When looking to set the value of cultural heritage objects as public goods we must make use of socioeconomic theory. Cultural heritage must be treated as a (consumable) good. Further, according to socio-economic theory, cultural heritage objects are 'common goods'.

Common goods are characterised by being:

The private (and profit driven) market cannot produce or supply sufficient non-exclusive common goods. The reason is simple: if you cannot force someone to pay to consume a specific good you cannot generate any profit! If profit may not be achieved for a ’good’ the mechanisms of the private market ensure that such goods are not offered on the (same) market. So, if the mechanisms of the private market alone decided, only those (immovable) cultural heritage objects with a high market value would be protected. The logic is similar for all common goods.

Now if this is the position of cultural heritage in a market, how do we find out what value these goods have? From the perspective of value creation / definition there is no defined and unified methodology to specify the socio-economic value of cultural heritage objects. But standard economic calculation methods may be used to define the value of a cultural heritage object – or better an aggregated group of cultural heritage objects.

Consequentially the value of a cultural heritage good is the highest sum of money a ’consumer’ is willing to pay to ensure the possibility to enjoy (consume) the good. This is the use value of the good. But, as other common goods, cultural heritage is a ’non marketable good ’ and also a non- renewable good. The final estimation of value must also take into account what we can call a non-use value.

In conclusion, the value of such goods must be defined by analysing two types of values: Use value and Non use value. The non-use value is one that must be added to the use value to achieve a correct picture of the total value of cultural heritage to society.