Robin Neill wrote:
>Perhaps if we started with some definitions.


Very good. Definitions are great here, since anyone with common sense 
would define children as dependents.

It is not the child who could be regarded a public good but the new 
adult whose contribution to total wealth (excluding her own wealth), 
in present value terms, is greater than the cost, in present value 
terms, of enabling her to reach that new adult stage.

However, any given new adult who satisfies this criterion might well 
cause an increase in some people's wealth (or utility equivalent) and 
a decrease in others'. It follows that to be considered a PURE public 
good (everyone benefits), such a child would, at the time she becomes 
a new adult, have to have some positive probability of causing a net 
gain to each and every member of the society. Then she could be 
called a pure public good in an ex ante sense.

Since there are different way to raise children, whether a new adult 
is a pure public good would seem to depend on how the child is 
raised. I would suggest that she be raised a humanitarian with an 
acute sense of how to calculate benefits and costs. Does anyone know 
a humanitarian who is also a good economist?

Pat Gunning