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The Logic of Collective Action has for decades supplied the logic of public policy analysis. 1 In this pioneering application of public choice theory, Mancur Olson elegantly punctured the premise—shared by a diverse variety of political theories—that individuals can be expected to act consistently with the interest of the groups to which they belong. Absent externally imposed incentives, wealth-maximizing individuals, he argued, will rarely find it in their interest to contribute to goods that benefit the group as a whole, but rather will ‘‘free ride’’on the contributions that other group members make. As a result, too few individuals will contribute sufficiently, and the well-being of the group will suffer. 2 These are the assumptions that currently dominate public policy analysis and ultimately public policy across a host of regulatory domains—from tax collection to environmental conservation, from street-level policing to policing of …