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The Outline of the Assignment

1. Public vs. Private Goods

• Definition and features of public goods

• Definition and features of private goods

2. Meteorology services as a public good

• The function of TSMS

• Demanders of meteorological services

• Sectors directly/indirectly benefit from these services

3. Advantages vs. disadvantages of meteorology services as a public good

• Assumption (An utopia envisioned by me)

• Advantages of meteorological services as a public good

• Disadvantages of meteorological services as a public good

4. The cost of performing meteorological services as a public good

• Current circumstances and outlook for meteorology services in the world

• The cost of performing meteorological services for governments

5. First proposal

6. Second proposal

7. Third proposal

8. Conclusion

• Choosing one of the option and explain why

9. Bibliography

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Before addressing directly the solution of this assignment, I would like to point out that;

this report was formed by my original thoughts and considerations, and of course the

contribution of many investigations.

Public vs. private goods;

As we all know, a public good is a good that is ‘’jointly consumption (non-rivalled)’’ and

‘’non-excludable’’. Briefly, non-rivalled means that the marginal cost of supplying public goods to another user is close to zero – consumption by one user will not diminish

consumptions by others. Secondly, public goods are non-excludable. It is difficult and very costly to exclude anyone from benefiting from the good. The users of public goods

are heterogeneous. The whole of society can get benefits from public goods and the total benefit is greater the more widely public goods are consumed. For example; national

defence, free to air etc..

The opposite form of a public good is private good, which does not possess these

properties. Private goods are rivalry in consumption and have low cost of exclusion. It is

physically and economically feasible to identify users of private information products and

charge them for such products. It is easy to exclude the others, Examples for private

goods are; clothing, foods, all materials etc..

Meteorology services as a public good;

Meteorology services, as a public good, are provided by Turkish State Meteorological

Service in Turkey. Meteorology services consist of information products. Meteorological

information takes a variety of forms. They appear in the form of statistical summaries of

historical data or as forecasts on various time scales (weather forecasts). Now, let’s

examine the demanders for meteorological services. Current and potential beneficiaries of

meteorological services include individuals, households, firms, government organizations, economics sectors, regions, national economies, the global economy and

future generations. Virtually every sector of every country makes some direct or indirect use of meteorological services. These sectors include agriculture, aviation of course,

banking and financial services, construction industries, disaster management, energy generation and supply, environmental protection, fishery, forestry, health, insurance,

manufacturing, military, port and harbour management, transport, retailing, sport, water source planning and management, and tourism industry…

Advantages vs. disadvantages of meteorology services as a public good;

Now, lets imagine, government have decided to assign meteorological services operation

to private sector by public offering or privatization. Actually there are already many

private firms in the market providing different and specialized services to the customers

but I mean here is, all the meteorological will be delivered to private sector. Let’s think

about, can government completely trust private sector about this issue? Nobody can make

it sure to the customer that tomorrow this company will be still performing these services

as well as before. Also, in these crises circumstances just as present, these companies can

get affected and they might close the doors of the company without considering any

demander (public). This is one of the point of view, but on the other hand, later on, may

be 5 or 10 years later, nobody make sure that these private company will not act as a

monopoly in the market and charge demanders for high prices. Of course, government will put some restraints before making privatization yet for the long term period, this

control might flow away from the hand of government.

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Here I will talk about completely different point of view. If we put ourselves in the shoes

of demanders, we might get benefit from private meteorological services. Firstly, we will

get more accurate information or forecasts hence the companies use the last technology

equipment by providing these services, besides, private-owned services must increase

customer intimacy by customization. I mean, provide information in order to supply

extreme needs of customers such as, the intensity of the wind in the Aegean Sea (this is

for fishery in the Aegean Side).

The cost of performing meteorological services as a public good; At the above, we analyzed what could be happen if the meteorological services are giving

by private enterprises. Now, we will analyze the cost for government to perform meteorological services.

The cost of providing meteorological services will depend on the particular type of services required. But with growing pressure on national budgets, many governments are

seeking alternative ways to finance all these services. Performing meteorological services

are entailed much more investment rather than other units of the government, because

day-to-day, demanders want more complicated and specific services (such as; for sailors,

or fishery). Therefore, governments are seeking another ways instead of holding all the

market share of meteorological services. Here, as I read in one article; The Ministry of

Finance has developed 3 options in order to solve this problem.

First proposal;

Publicly funded TSMS (Turkish State Meteorological Service) to provide ‘public good’

meteorological services, including the basic infrastructure, and general forecasts, and

warning as a free service. (Meteorology services as a pure public good)

Second proposal; Similar to option 1 except that, all the special services will be provided by the private

sector and are paid for by the clients and sold on the free market. The TSMS does not provide any special services. (Meteorology services as a mixed good)

Third proposal;

TSMS operates in the form of Government Business Entity which is corporatized. I mean here is; TSMS will operate as a regular company and compete with other meteorological

service providers at the free market. (Meteorology services as a private good)

Conclusion;

I think, there are several advantages in adopting option 2. Because, as I mentioned above,

could we really trust private sector to supply the whole meteorological services to the

public without any breakdown? But we can include private sector little bit in order to

increase quality and efficiency of meteorological services. Because private-owned

companies can track last technology and could provide extreme (specific) services to

demanders. Finally I believe it would be better if the meteorological services transform

into like mixed good. (As a semi-public good.)

Bibliography;

• http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:wZAvL9krD6gJ:www7.nationalacademies.org/biso/STISymposium_Weiss.ppt+Bord

ers+in+cyberspace,+conflicting+government&hl=tr&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=tr

• http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:hXgqDRTWxvEJ:www.bom.gov.au/bmrc/pubs/researchreports/RR102.pdf+Economi

c+issues+relating+to+meteorological+services+provision&hl=tr&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=tr

• Public Finance (A contemporary Application of Theory to Policy, 5th edition)

• Slides of TayFun Mogol’s Course.