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Ronald Coase From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Ronald Coase Coase scan 10 edited.jpg Born 29 December 1910 Willesden, London, United Kingdom Died 2 September 2013 (aged 102) Chicago, Illinois, United States Nationality British Institution University of Dundee University at Buffalo University of Virginia University of Chicago Field Law and economics School or tradition New Institutional Economics Alma mater London School of Economics Contributions Coase theorem Analysis of transaction costs Coase conjecture Awards Nobel Prize in Economics (1991) Information at IDEAS / RePEc

Ronald Harry Coase (/ˈkoʊz/; 29 December 1910 – 2 September 2013) was a British economist and author. He was for much of his life the Clifton R. Musser Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Chicago Law School, where he arrived in 1964 and remained for the rest of his life. After studying with the University of London External Programme in 1927–29, Coase entered the London School of Economics, where he took courses with Arnold Plant.[1] He received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1991.[2]

Coase, who believed economists should study real markets and not theoretical ones, established the case for the corporation as a means to pay the costs of operating a marketplace.[3] Coase is best known for two articles in particular: 'The Nature of the Firm' (1937), which introduces the concept of transaction costs to explain the nature and limits of firms, and 'The Problem of Social Cost' (1960), which suggests that well-defined property rights could overcome the problems of externalities (see Coase theorem). Coase is also often referred to as the 'father' of reform in the policy for allocation of the electromagnetic spectrum, based on his article 'The Federal Communications Commission' (1959), where he criticises spectrum licensing, suggesting property rights as a more efficient method of allocating spectrum to users. Additionally, Coase's transaction costs approach is currently influential in modern organizational economics, where it was reintroduced by Oliver E. Williamson.

Contents [hide] 1 Biography 2 Contributions to economics 2.1 The Nature of the Firm 2.2 The Problem of Social Cost 2.3 Law and Economics 2.4 Coase Conjecture 3 Political views 4 The Ronald Coase Institute 5 The Coase-Sandor Institute for Law and Economics 6 Publications 7 See also 8 Notes 9 References 10 External links

Biography[edit] Scanned photo of Ronald Coase from UChicago Law archives. Ronald Harry Coase was born in Willesden, a suburb of London, on 29 December 1910. His father, Henry Joseph Coase (1884-1973) was a telegraphist for the post office, as was his mother, Rosalie Elizabeth Coase (née Giles; 1882-1972), before marriage. As a child, Coase had a weakness in his legs, for which he was required to wear leg-irons. Due to this problem, he attended the school for physical defectives. At the age of 12, he was able to enter the Kilburn Grammar School on scholarship. At Kilburn, Coase completed the first year of his BComm degree and then passed on to the University of London.[4] Coase married Marion Ruth Hartung of Chicago, Illinois in Willesden, England, 7 August 1937. Coase attended the London School of Economics, where he received a bachelor of commerce degree in 1932. During his undergraduate studies, Coase received the Sir Ernest Cassel Travelling Scholarship, awarded by the University of London. He used this to visit the University of Chicago in 1931-1932 and studied with Frank Knight and Jacob Viner. Coase’s colleagues would later admit that they did not remember this first visit.[5] Between 1932-34, Coase was an assistant lecturer at the Dundee School of Economics and Commerce at the University of Dundee. Subsequently, Coase was an assistant lecturer in commerce at the University of Liverpool between 1934–1935 before returning to London School of Economics as a member of staff until 1951. He then started to work at the University at Buffalo and retained his British citizenship after moving to the United States in the 1950s.[6] In 1958, he moved to the University of Virginia. Coase settled at the University of Chicago in 1964 and became the editor of the Journal of Law and Economics. He was also for a time a trustee of the Philadelphia Society.[7] He received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1991. Nearing his 100th birthday, Coase was working on a book concerning the rise of the economies of China and Vietnam.[8] An interview with Coase was conducted by Wang Ning (co-author of the book How China Became Capitalist) 28–29 December 2010, in Chicago. In the interview, Coase explained the mission of the Coase China Society and his vision of economics and the part to be played by Chinese economists.[9][10] Coase was honoured and received an honorary doctorate from the University at Buffalo Department of Economics in May 2012.[11] Coase died in Chicago on 2 September 2013.[12] His wife had died on 17 October 2012.[13] He was praised across the political spectrum, with Slate Magazine calling him 'one of the most distinguished economists in the world'[14] and Forbes magazine calling him 'the greatest of the many great University of Chicago economists'.[15] The Washington Post called his work over eight decades 'impossible to summarize' while recommending five of his papers to read.[16]

Contributions to economics[edit]

The Nature of the Firm[edit] Main article: The Nature of the Firm In The Nature of the Firm (1937) – a brief but highly influential essay – Coase attempts to explain why the economy features a number of business firms instead of consisting exclusively of a multitude of independent, self-employed people who contract with one another. Given that 'production could be carried on without any organization [that is, firms] at all', Coase asks, why and under what conditions should we expect firms to emerge? Since modern firms can only emerge when an entrepreneur of some sort begins to hire people, Coase's analysis proceeds by considering the conditions under which it makes sense for an entrepreneur to seek hired help instead of contracting out for some particular task. The traditional economic theory of the time (in the tradition of Adam Smith) suggested that, because the market is 'efficient' (that is, those who are best at providing each good or service most cheaply are already doing so), it should always be cheaper to contract out than to hire. Coase noted, however, a number of transaction costs involved in using the market; the cost of obtaining a good or service via the market actually exceeds the price of the good. Other costs, including search and information costs, bargaining costs, keeping trade secrets, and policing and enforcement costs, can all potentially add to the cost of procuring something from another party. This suggests that firms will arise which can internalise the production of goods and services required to deliver a product, thus avoiding these costs. This argument sets the stage for the later contributions by Oliver Williamson: markets and hierarchies are alternative co-ordination mechanisms for economic transactions.[17] There is a natural limit to what a firm can produce internally, however. Coase notices 'decreasing returns to the entrepreneur function', including increasing overhead costs and increasing propensity for an overwhelmed manager to make mistakes in resource allocation. These factors become countervailing costs to the use of the firm. Coase argues that the size of a firm (as measured by how many contractual relations are 'internal' to the firm and how many 'external') is a result of finding an optimal balance between the competing tendencies of the costs outlined above. In general, making the firm larger will initially be advantageous, but the decreasing returns indicated above will eventually kick in, preventing the firm from growing indefinitely. Other things being equal, therefore, a firm will tend to be larger: the lower the costs of organising and the slower these costs rise with an increase in the number of transactions organised the less likely the entrepreneur is to make mistakes and the smaller the increase in mistakes with an increase in the transactions organised the greater the lowering (or the smaller the rise) in the supply price of factors of production to firms of larger size The first two costs will increase with the spatial distribution of the transactions organised and the dissimilarity of the transactions. This explains why firms tend to either be in different geographic locations or to perform different functions. Additionally, technology changes that mitigate the cost of organising transactions across space may allow firms to become larger – the advent of the telephone and of cheap air travel, for example, would be expected to increase the size of firms.

The Problem of Social Cost[edit] Main article: The Problem of Social Cost Ronald Coase working in 2003. Photo taken at and by University of Chicago Law School. Upon publishing his article The Federal Communications Commission in 1959, Coase received negative feedback from the faculty at the University of Chicago over his conclusions and apparent conflicts with A.C. Pigou. According to Coase, 'What I said was thought to run counter to Pigou’s analysis by a number of economists at the University of Chicago and was therefore, according to them, wrong. At a meeting in Chicago I was able to convince these economists that I was right and Pigou’s analysis faulty.' Published in the Journal of Law and Economics in 1960, while Coase was a member of the Economics department at the University of Virginia, 'The Problem of Social Cost' provided the key insight that it is unclear where the blame for externalities lies. The example he gave was of a rancher whose cattle stray onto the cropland of his neighbour. If the rancher is made to restrict his cattle, he is harmed just as the farmer as if the cattle remain unrestrained. Coase argued that without transaction costs the initial assignment of property rights makes no difference to whether or not the farmer and rancher can achieve the economically efficient outcome. If the cost of restraining cattle by, say, building a fence, is less than the cost of crop damage, the fence will be built. The initial assignment of property rights determines who builds the fence. If the farmer is responsible for the crop damage, the farmer will pay for the fence (as long the fence costs less than the crop damage). If the rancher is responsible for the crop damage, the rancher will build the fence. The allocation of property rights is primarily an equity issue, with consequences for the distribution of income and wealth, rather than an efficiency issue. With sufficient transaction costs, initial property rights matter for both equity and efficiency. From the point of view of economic efficiency, property rights should be assigned such that the owner of the rights wants to take the economically efficient action. To elaborate, if it is efficient not to restrict the cattle, the rancher should be given the rights (so that cattle can move about freely), whereas if it is efficient to restrict the cattle, the farmer should be given the rights over the movement of the cattle (so the cattle are restricted). This seminal argument forms the basis of the famous Coase theorem as labelled by George Stigler.

Law and Economics[edit] Ronald Coase profile photo in 2003. Photo taken at and by University of Chicago Law School. Though trained as an economist, Coase spent much of his career working in a law school. He is a central figure in the development of the subfield of law and economics. He viewed law and economics as having two parts, the first 'using the economists’ approach and concepts to analyze the working of the legal system, often called the economic analysis of the law'; and the second 'a study of the influence of the legal system on the working of the economic system.'.[18] Coase said that the second part 'is the part of law and economics in which I am most interested.' In his Simons Lecture celebrating the centennial of the University of Chicago, titled 'Law and Economics at Chicago,' Coase noted that he only accidentally wandered into the field. It is generally agreed that this article has had an immense influence on legal scholarship, but this was no part of my intention. For me, 'The Problem of Social Cost' was an essay in economics. It was aimed at economists. What I wanted to do was to improve our analysis of the working of the economic system. Law came into article because, in a regime of positive transaction costs, the character of the law becomes one of the main factors determining the performance of the economy. If transaction costs were zero (as is assumed in standard economic theory) we can imagine people contracting around the law whenever the value of production would be increased by a change in the legal position. But in a regime of positive transaction costs, such contracting would not occur whenever transaction costs were greater than the gain that such a redistribution of rights would bring. As a consequence the rights which individuals possess will commonly be those established by the law, which in these circumstances can be said to control the economy. As I have said, in 'The Problem of Social Cost' I had no intention of making a contribution to legal scholarship. I referred to legal cases because they afforded examples of real situations as against the imaginary ones normally used by economists in their analysis. It was undoubtedly an economist who invented the widget. But in 'The Problem of Social Cost' I did something else. I pointed out that the judges in their opinions often seemed to show a better understanding of the economic problem than did many economists even though their views were not always expressed in a very explicit fashion. I did this not to praise the judges but to shame economists.[19] Despite wandering accidentally into law and economics, the opportunity to edit the Journal of Law and Economics was instrumental in bringing him to the University of Chicago. [W]hen I was approached to fill Aaron Director's place on his retirement, what I found most attractive about coming to Chicago was the opportunity it gave me of editing the Journal. Indeed, it is probable that without the Journal I would not have come to Chicago. I knew nothing of the original aim of the Journal. What I wanted to do was to encourage the type of research which I had advocated in 'The Problem of Social Cost,' and I used my editorship of the Journal as a means of bringing this about.[19] Coase believed that the University of Chicago was the intellectual center of law and economics. He concluded his Simons lecture by stating, 'I am very much aware that, in concentrating in this lecture on law and economics at Chicago, I have neglected other significant contributions to the subject made elsewhere such as those by Guido Calabresi at Yale, by Donald Turner at Harvard, and by others. But it can hardly be denied that in the emergence of the subject of law and economics, Chicago has played a very significant part and one of which the University can be proud.'[19]

Coase Conjecture[edit] Another important contribution of Coase is the Coase Conjecture: an informal argument that durable-goods monopolists do not have market power because they are unable to commit to not lowering their prices in future periods.

Political views[edit] When asked what he considered his politics to be, Coase stated, 'I really don't know. I don't reject any policy without considering what its results are. If someone says there's going to be regulation, I don't say that regulation will be bad. Let's see. What we discover is that most regulation does produce, or has produced in recent times, a worse result. But I wouldn't like to say that all regulation would have this effect because one can think of circumstances in which it doesn't.'[20] Coase admitted that early in life, he aligned himself with socialism. As a young man I was a Socialist. The first challenge to this belief came when, in 1931, 5 months before I took the final examinations for the B.Com. degree, I attended Arnold Plant's seminar at the London School of Economics (LSE). He introduced me to Adam Smith's invisible hand and to the advantages of a competitive system. He also pointed out that government schemes in the economic sphere were often ill-conceived and were introduced to placate special interests. I adopted many of Plant's positions but continued to regard myself as a Socialist. That this meant holding what could be considered, and were, inconsistent positions was not unusual at that time. Abba Lerner, a fellow student and a fine theorist, with whom I had a very friendly relation, also believed in the virtues of a competitive system but was even more attached to Socialism than I was.[18] Guido Calabresi wrote that Coase’s focus on transaction costs in The Nature of the Firm was the result of his socialist beliefs. Reflecting on this, Coase wrote, 'It is very difficult to know where one’s ideas come from but for all I know he may well be right.' Coase continued: My socialist sympathies gradually fell away and this process was accentuated as a result of being assigned in 1935 at LSE the course on the Economics of Public Utilities. I soon found out that very little was known about British public utilities and I set about making a series of historical studies on the water, gas, and electricity supply industries and of the Post Office and broadcasting. These researches taught me much about the public utility industries and they certainly made me aware of the defects of government operation of these industries, whether municipal or through nationalisation. These researches were interrupted by the war, when I joined the civil service, at first, for a short period, in the Forestry Commission, then responsible for timber production, and for the rest of the war, in the Central Statistical Office, one of the offices of the War Cabinet. This war-time experience did not significantly influence my views but I could not help noticing that, with the country in mortal danger and despite the leadership of Winston Churchill, government departments often seemed more concerned to defend their own interests than those of the country.[18]

The Ronald Coase Institute[edit] Coase was research advisor to the Ronald Coase Institute, an organisation that promotes research on the institutions – the laws, rules, customs, and norms – that govern real economic systems, with particular support for young scholars from developing and transitional countries.

The Coase-Sandor Institute for Law and Economics[edit] Ronald Coase at a conference in 2008, with Richard Sandor in the background. From UChicago Law archives. The University of Chicago Law School carries on the legacy of Ronald Coase through the mission of the Coase-Sandor Institute for Law and Economics. Each year, the University of Chicago Law School hosts the Coase Lecture, which was delivered in 2003 by Ronald Coase himself.[21] Publications[edit] 'The Nature of the Firm'. Economica 4 (16): 386–405. 1937. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0335.1937.tb00002.x. 'The Problem of Social Cost'. Journal of Law and Economics 3 (1): 1–44. 1960. doi:10.1086/466560. Coase, R. H. (1972). 'Durability and Monopoly'. Journal of Law and Economics 15 (1): 143–149. doi:10.1086/466731. Coase, R. H. (1974). 'The Lighthouse in Economics'. Journal of Law and Economics 17 (2): 357–376. doi:10.1086/466796. 'The Institutional Structure of Production'. American Economic Review 82 (4): 713–719. 1992. JSTOR 2117340.. (Nobel Prize lecture) 'The Conduct of Economics: The Example of Fisher Body and General Motors'. Journal of Economics & Management Strategy 15 (2): 255–278. 2006. doi:10.1111/j.1530-9134.2006.00100.x. Coase, Ronald; Wang, Ning (2011). 'The Industrial Structure of Production: A Research Agenda for Innovation in an Entrepreneurial Economy'. Entrepreneurship Research Journal 2 (1). doi:10.2202/2157-5665.1026. How China Became Capitalist (2012) co-authored with Ning Wang. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1137019360.

See also[edit] Merger Horizontal integration Vertical integration Government failure List of think tanks Notes[edit] Jump up ^ Ronald Coase. 'Nobel Prize Autobiography,' 1991 Jump up ^ Hahn, Robert (2013). 'Ronald Harry Coase (1910–2013) Nobel-prize winning economist whose work inspired cap-and-trade'. Nature 502 (7472): 449. doi:10.1038/502449a. Jump up ^ Henderson, David R.,The man who resisted blackboard economics, Wall Street Journal, 4 September 2013, p. A15 Jump up ^ Breit, William and Barry T. Hirsch. Lives of the Laureates, 4th ed. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 2004. Jump up ^ Kitch, Edmund W. (1983). 'The Fire of Truth: A Remembrance of Law and Economics at Chicago, 1932-1970' 26 (1). pp. 163–234. JSTOR 725189. Jump up ^ 'U. of Chicago Professor Wins Nobel Economics Prize'. Jump up ^ 'Trustees'. Phillysoc.org. Retrieved 3 September 2013. Jump up ^ '99-year-old economist researches the rise of China and Vietnam'. VietNamNet Bridge. 24 March 2010. Jump up ^ 'Coase China Society Interviews Ronald Coase'. Unirule Institute of Economics. 3 January 2011. Jump up ^ 'Interview with Professor Ronald Coase'. Unirule Institute of Economics. 3 January 2011. Jump up ^ http://economics.buffalo.edu/ Robert Coase Honorary Doctorate Jump up ^ Galer, Sarah url=http://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/coaseinmemoriam. 'Ronald H. Coase, Founding Scholar in Law and Economics, 1910–2013 | University of Chicago Law School'. Law.uchicago.edu. Jump up ^ Lyons, Patrick J. (3 September 2013). 'Ronald H. Coase, a Law Professor And Leading Economist, Dies at 102'. The New York Times. Jump up ^ Yglesias, Matthew (3 September 2013). 'Ronald Coase, the Economist Who Explained Why We Have Companies'. Jump up ^ Smith, Fred (3 September 2013). 'Ronald Coase Was The Greatest Of The Many Great University Of Chicago Economists'. Forbes. Jump up ^ Matthews, Dylan (3 September 2013). 'Ronald Coase is dead. Here are five of his papers you need to read.'. Jump up ^ Hein Schreuder, 'Coase, Hayek and Hierarchy', In: S. Lindenberg & Hein Schreuder, editors, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Organization Studies, Pergamon Press ^ Jump up to: a b c Coase, R. H. (1996). 'Law and Economics and A.W. Brian Simpson'. Journal of Legal Studies 25 (1): 103–119. JSTOR 724523. ^ Jump up to: a b c Coase, R. H. (1993). 'Law and Economics at Chicago'. Journal of Law and Economics 36 (1): 239–254. JSTOR 725475. Jump up ^ 'Looking for results'. Reason magazine. Jump up ^ '2003 Coase Lecture: Ronald Coase, 'The Present and Future of Law and Economics''. References[edit] MacKenzie, Douglas (2008). 'Coase, Ronald H. (1910– )'. In Hamowy, Ronald. The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE; Cato Institute. pp. 73–4. ISBN 978-1-4129-6580-4. LCCN 2008009151. OCLC 750831024. External links[edit] Wikiquote has quotations related to: Ronald Coase A video of Prof. Coase talking about law and economics Biography at the Nobel site Ronald H. Coase (1910– ). The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. Library of Economics and Liberty (2nd ed.) (Liberty Fund). 2008. Wireless Communications and Computing at a Crossroads, Journal on Telecommunications & High Technology Law, Vol. 3, No. 2, p. 239, 205 Coase Institute 'Looking for Results', interview in Reason by Thomas W. Hazlett 2003 Coase Centennial Speech delivered by Coase (500MB QuickTime video file) 'Why do Firms Exist?', Schumpeter, Economist, 2010. Russ Roberts's 'Coase on Externalities, the Firm, and the State of Economics' from the Library of Economics and Liberty No Cheap Victories – Last Interview and Tribute Ronald Coase and the Misuse of Economics by John Cassidy, The New Yorker, 2013

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Property Authority control WorldCat VIAF: 109637822 LCCN: n80030662 ISNI: 0000 0001 0933 518X GND: 119069156 SUDOC: 031605702 BNF: cb12278813q (data) ULAN: 500245228 NDL: 00464685 NKC: jn20000601177 Categories: 1910 births2013 deathsAlumni of the London School of EconomicsAlumni of the University of London International ProgrammesEnglish business theoristsEnglish economistsHistorians of economic thoughtLaw and economicsMont Pelerin Society membersNobel laureates in EconomicsPeople educated at Kilburn Grammar SchoolPeople from WillesdenPhiladelphia Society membersPublic choice theoryUniversity at Buffalo facultyUniversity of Chicago facultyUniversity of Virginia facultyEnglish centenariansUniversity of Virginia alumniEnglish Nobel laureates20th-century English writers21st-century English writers20th-century economists21st-century economistsNew institutional economistsEnglish historiansCato Institute people