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
1

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.
2

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.
3