I know I talk about lighthouses a lot. This is because they are economically relevant. They are the penultimate example of public goods and they underlie all positive (i.e. scientific) justifications for state-provision of public goods. However, economic theory has whitewashed the history of the lighthouse in order to make this case. In reality, the lighthouse never was a public good and it never was, before the 19th century, the main way of providing maritime safety. Alongside Rosolino Candela, in a new working paper, I provide a ton of historical evidence showing that it was a complement to private goods and services such as pilotage and ballastage. Because it was a complement to other goods, it could be privately provided through bundling. That option was prohibited, however, by rent-seeking and monopoly privileges granted to firms/guilds involved in the production of the private goods that could (and did) produce lighthouses and…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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