 The paper has been criticized by Van Zandt (1993), Bertrand (2006) and others for not fully appreciating the characteristic of non-excludability of public goods.Historical records showed that those lighthouses which ran on voluntary payment did not survive long and eventually had to be granted the right to collect a light due by the government.However, in the British case, Coase argues that private lighthouses did not survive, not because they were insolvent, but rather because of deliberate policy initiatives.