Groups underprovide public goods unless incentives or coercion overcome free-riding.
Olson's 1965 argument, and its counterintuitive claim is that large groups organise worse than small ones: each member's share of the benefit shrinks while the cost of participating does not.
In practice
- A block of four hundred flats cannot agree to fund a roof repair that every resident wants and each would rather someone else paid for.
- A trade of eight hundred firms cannot fund a shared standards body, and a trade of six can.