 Leif Johansen has argued that the free-riding argument is less compelling than it appears (Johansen 1977). On the one hand, there is little evidence that people systematically misstate their preferences in elections. On the other hand, public goods are produced at rates that are much higher than would be suggested by the free-rider theory, which assumes that utility is strictly increasing in private consumption. The empirical evidence on these questions will be reviewed in  Section 5  of this entry.