Ronald H. CoaseRonald H. Coase

In 1991 Ronald Harry Coase receivedthe Sveriges Riksbank (Bank of Sweden)Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory ofAlfred Nobel

“for his discovery and clarifica-tion of the significance of trans-action costs and property rightsfor the institutional structureand functioning of the eco-nomy”.

In its press release on Coase’s Nobel award,The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciencesmakes mention of only two papers: TheNature of the Firm and The Problem of So-cial Cost. It is largely on these two contri-butions to the theory of the firm and thetheory of externalities that Coase’s rightfulclaim to be the greatest economist of the20th century is based.

The Man

Coase was born at 3:25 p.m. on December 29th, 1910 in a house in Willes-

den, a suburb of London. His father was a telegraphist in the Post Office, his

mother had been employed in the Post Office but ceased to work on being

married. In an autobiographical article Coase notes that “as a young boy I

suffered from a weakness in my legs, which necessitated, or was thought to

necessitate, the wearing of irons on my legs. As a result I went to the school

for physical defectives run by the local council.” At the age of 12 Coase went

to Kilburn Grammar School for his secondary schooling. In 1927 he took the

matriculation examination and passed, with distinction in history and chem-

istry. It was then possible to spend the two years after matriculation at the

Kilburn Grammar School studying for the intermediate examination of the

University of London as an external student, which covered the work which

would have been taken during the first year at the University as an internal

student. He then had to decide what degree to take. Coase’s inclination was

to take a degree in history, but he found that to do this he would have to

know Latin and having arrived at the Kilburn Grammar School at 12, instead

of the more usual 11, there had been no possibility of him studying Latin.

So he turned to the other subject in which he had secured distinction and

started to study for a science degree, specialising in chemistry. However, he

soon found that mathematics, a requirement for a science degree, was not to

his liking and he switched to the only other degree for which it was possible

to study at the Kilburn Grammar School, one in commerce. He passed the

intermediate examinations and went to the London School of Economics and

Political Science in October 1929 to continue his studies for a Bachelor of

Commerce degree. He took what he describes as “a hodgepodge of courses”

for Part I of the final examination, which he passed in 1930.

For Part II, he specialised in the Industry Group. As luck would have it

Coase attended the lectures by the Professor of Commerce (with special ref-

erence to Business Administration), (later Sir) Arnold Plant. Plant changed

Coase’s view of the working of the economic system by introducing him to

Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”. Coase become aware of how a competitive

economic system could be coordinated by the pricing system. Coase passed

the B. Com, Part II final examination in 1931, but having taken the first

year of University work while still at school, and three years residence at the

London School of Economics being required before a degree could be awar-

ded, he had to decide what to do in this third year. He was awarded a Sir

Ernest Cassel Travelling Scholarship and this put him on road to becoming

an economist.

Coase spent the academic year 1931-32 on his Cassel Travelling Scholar-

ship in the United States studying the structure of American industries, with

the aim of discovering why industries were organised in different ways. He

carried out this project mainly by visiting factories and businesses. What

came out of his enquiries was not a complete theory answering his questions

but the introduction of a new concept into economic analysis, transaction

costs, and an explanation of why there are firms. All this was achieved by

the Summer of 1932, as the contents of a lecture delivered in Dundee in Oc-

tober 1932, make clear. These ideas became the basis for his greatest article

“The Nature of the Firm”, published in Economica, Vol. 4, No. 16, Nov.,

1937 pp. 386-405.

He held a teaching position at the Dundee School of Economics and Com-

merce from 1932 to 1934, at the University of Liverpool from 1934 to 1935

and at the London School of Economics from 1935 on. In 1939, the Second

World War broke out and in 1940 Coase entered government service doing

statistical work, first at the Forestry Commission and then at the Central

Statistical Office, Offices of the War Cabinet. He returned to the London

School of Economics in 1946. In 1951, he migrated to the United States.

Coase went first to the University of Buffalo and in 1959, after a year at

the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, he joined the

economics department of the University of Virginia.

During his year at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral

Sciences, Coase made a study of the Federal Communications Commission

which regulated the broadcasting industry in the United States, including the

allocation of the radio frequency spectrum. He wrote an article, published

in 1959, which discussed the procedures followed by the Commission and

suggested that it would be better if use of the spectrum was determined

by the pricing system and was awarded to the highest bidder. This raised

the question of what rights would be acquired by the successful bidder and

Coase went on to discuss the rationale of a property rights system. Part of

his argument was considered to be erroneous by a number of economists at

the University of Chicago and it was arranged that he should meet with them

one evening for the now famous seminar at Aaron Director’s home. George

Stigler described events as

“The seminar was one of the most ex-

citing intellectual events of my life.

When, in 1960, he [Coase] wrote to

Chicago and said, “OK, I’ll give a dull

workshop if you’ll let me talk about

why the passage in my FCC article

was not wrong,” that was arranged.

It was a compliment to you, Aaron,

that a group of really quite remark-

able analytical powers formed at the

time. As Ronald says, it contained

Aaron [Director], Milton [Friedman],

John McGee, Gregg Louis, Reuben

Kessel, Al Harberger, Martin Bailey.

It was a collection of theorists who were simply superb. At the

beginning of the evening we took a vote and there were twenty

votes for Pigou and one for Ronald, and if Ronald had not been

allowed to vote it would have been even more one-sided. The

discussion began. As usual, Milton did much of the talking. I

think it is also fair to say that, as usual, Milton did much of the

correct and deep and analytical thinking. I cannot reconstruct

it. I have never really forgiven Aaron for not having brought a

tape recorder that night. He should have known this was going

to be a great event because he is a wise man. My recollection is

that Ronald didn’t persuade us. But he refused to yield to all our

erroneous arguments. Milton would hit him from one side, then

from another, then from another. Then to our horror, Milton

missed him and hit us. At the end of that evening the vote had

changed. There were twenty-one votes for Ronald and no votes

for Pigou.”

Coase was asked to write up his argument for publication in the Journal of

Law and Economics. Although the main points were already to be found in

“The Federal Communications Commission” study, he wrote another article,

“The Problem of Social Cost”, in which he expounded his views at greater

length, more precisely and without reference to his previous article. It was

published in the Journal of Law and Economics, v. 3, no. 1 pp. 1-44, 1960.

In 1964, Coase moved to the University of Chicago and became editor

of the Journal of Law and Economics. He continued as editor until his

retirement in 1982. Coase is currently Clifton R. Musser Professor Emeritus

of Economics at the University of Chicago Law School. He was the founding

president of the International Society for New Institutional Economics (1996-

97).

The Work

Of Coase’s work one biographical essay says “[f]irst, his writings are

sparse. In a sixty-year career he wrote only about a dozen significant papers

− and very few insignificant ones. Second, he uses little or no mathematics,

disdaining what he calls “blackboard economics.” Yet his impact on econom-

ics has been profound. That impact stems almost entirely from two of his

articles, one of which was published when he was twenty seven. The other

was published twenty-three years later.” The first of these is “The Nature of

the Firm”.

The Nature of the Firm

As many people have noted, neoclassical theory treats the firm as a black

box. The firms is taken as given; no attention is paid to how it comes into

existence, the nature of its internal operations, or whether anything would

change if two firms merged and called themselves a single firm.

Against this background Coase’s paper was a refreshing and important

development. It started the modern theory of the organisations by asking

simple questions such as, What is a firm? Where do the boundaries of one

firm cease and those of another firm begin? What are the costs and benefits

of integration?

According to Coase, the key idea in “The Nature of the Firm” is “the

comparison of the costs of coordinating the activities of factors of production

within the firm with the costs of bringing about the same result by market

transactions or by means of operations undertaken within some other firm.”

To make such a comparison Coase found it necessary to introduce a

concept which he termed “the cost of using the price mechanism,” “the cost

of carrying out a transaction by means of an exchange on the open market,”

or simply “marketing costs.” These have come to be known in the economic

literature as “transaction costs.” Coase has described what he had in mind

in the following terms: “In order to carry out a market transaction it is ne-

cessary to discover who it is that one wishes to deal with, to inform people

that one wishes to deal and on what terms, to conduct negotiations leading

up to a bargain, to draw up the contract, to undertake the inspection needed

to make sure that the terms of the contract are being observed, and so on.”

The existence of transaction costs will lead those who wish to trade to en-

gage in practices which bring about a reduction of transaction costs whenever

the loss suffered in other ways from the adoption of those practices is less than

the transaction costs saved. The people one deals with, the type of contract

entered into, the kind of product or service supplied, will all be affected. But

perhaps the most important adaptation to the existence of transaction costs

is the emergence of the firm. In “The Nature of the Firm” Coase argued that,

although production could be carried out in a completely decentralised way

by means of contracts between individuals1, the fact that it costs something

to enter into these transactions means that firms will emerge to organise what

would otherwise be market transactions whenever their costs were less than

the costs of carrying out the transactions through the market. The limit to

the size of the firm is set where its costs of organising a transaction become

equal to the cost of carrying it out through the market. This determines

what the firm buys, produces, and sells.

In “The Nature of the Firm” we see most of the main issues of the modern

theory of the firm being raised together for the first time. He sets out to

“discover why a firm emerges at all in a specialized exchange” - a question

about the existence of the firm; he also sets out to “study the forces which

determine the size of the firm” - an issue to do with the boundaries of the firm;

and he inquires into the reasons for “diminishing returns to management” -

issues to do with the internal organisation of the firm. It was the efforts to

answer these questions that initiated the charge from seeing the theory of

the firm as just part of price theory to seeing it as an important topic in its

own right. Coase also provides one of the main building block for answers to

these issues, the “costs of using the price mechanism” or transaction costs.

The Problem of Social Cost

In writing this article Coase was exposing the weaknesses of Pigou’s ana-

lysis of the divergence between private and social products, an analysis gener-

ally accepted by economists. Pigou’s conclusion and that of most economists

using standard economic theory was, and perhaps still is, that some kind of

government action (usually the imposition of taxes) was required to restrain

those whose actions had harmful effects on others, often termed negative ex-

ternalities. What he showed was that in a regime of zero transaction costs,

an assumption of standard economic theory, negotiations between the parties

would lead to those arrangements being made which would maximise wealth

and this irrespective of the initial assignment of rights. This is the famous

Coase Theorem, named and formulated by George Stigler.2 (Stigler’s for-

mulation is the “Coase theorem [. . . ] asserts that under perfect competition

private and social costs will be equal.”)

Coase regards the Coase Theorem as a step-

ping stone on the way to an analysis of an

economy with positive transaction costs. The

significance of it is that it undermines the

Pigovian system. Since standard economic

theory assumes transaction costs to be zero,

the Coase Theorem demonstrates that the

Pigovian solutions are unnecessary in these

circumstances. Of course, it does not imply,

when transaction costs are positive, that gov-

ernment actions (such as government opera-

tion, regulation or taxation, including subsid-

ies) could not produce a better result than relying on negotiations between

individuals in the market. Whether this would be so could be discovered not

by studying imaginary governments but what real governments actually do.

Coase’s conclusion; let us study the world of positive transaction costs.

If we move from a regime of zero transaction costs to one of positive

transaction costs, what becomes immediately clear is the crucial importance

of the legal system in this new world. Coase explained in “The Problem

of Social Cost” that what are traded on the market are not, as is often

supposed by economists, physical entities but the rights to perform certain

actions and the rights which individuals possess are established by the legal

system. While we can imagine in the hypothetical world of zero transaction

costs that the parties to an exchange would negotiate to change any provision

of the law which prevents them from taking whatever steps are required to

increase the value of production, in the real world of positive transaction costs

such a procedure would be extremely costly, and would make unprofitable,

even where it was allowed, a great deal of such contracting around the law.

Because of this, the rights which individuals possess, with their duties and

privileges, will be, to a large extent what the law determines. As a result

the legal system will have a profound effect on the working of the economic

system and may in certain respects be said to control it. It is obviously

desirable that these rights should be assigned to those who can use them

most productively and with incentives that lead them to do so and that,

to discover and maintain such a distribution of rights, the costs of their

transference should be low, through clarity in the law and by making the legal

requirements for such transfers less onerous. Since this can come about only

if there is an appropriate system of property rights, and they are enforced, it

is easy to understand why so many academic lawyers (at least in the United

States) have found so attractive the task of uncovering the character of such

a property rights system and why the subject of “law and economics” has

flourished in law schools. This development of law and economics is one of

the major outcomes of Coase’s work.

An implication of this work is that in a world of zero transaction costs a

large amount of legislation would serve no material purpose. This thesis is a

direct parallel to the conclusion in “The Nature of the Firm” that firms under

the same conditions are superfluous. All allocations could be effectuated

through simple, uncomplicated agreements without administrative features,

i.e., through frictionless markets.

The work by Coase emphasising the importance of transaction costs and

institutions developed to minimise them has, in addition to outcomes noted

above, provided the inspiration for the development of the New Institutional

Economics. This work attempts to incorporate a theory of institutions into

economics. It includes work in transaction costs, political economy, property

rights, hierarchy and organisation, and public choice.

Summary

In his Nobel lecture Coase writes “[m]y contribution to economics has

been to urge the inclusion in our analysisof features of the economic system

so obvious that, like the postman in G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown tale,

“The Invisible Man,” they have tended to be overlooked. Nonetheless, once

included in the analysis, they will, as I believe, bring about a complete change

in the structure of economic theory, at least in what is called price theory or

microeconomics. What I have done is to show the importance for the working

of the economic system of what may be termed the institutional structure

of production.” This contribution has lead to the development of the theory

of the firm, law and economics and the new institutional economics more

generally.

End Notes

1As an approximation to “anonymous firm” production - that is, fully price-decentralised

production - consider the case of rife manufacture in Birmingham, England in the 1860s,

“[o]f the 5800 people engaged in this manufacture within the borough’s

boundaries in 1861 the majority worked within a small district round St

Mary’s Church. . . . The reason for the high degree of localization is not

difficult to discover. The manufacture of guns, as of jewellery, was carried

on by a large number of makers who specialized on particular processes, and

this method of organization involved the frequent transport of parts from

one workshop to another.

The master gun-maker-the entrepreneur-seldom possessed a factory or

workshop. . . . Usually he owned merely a warehouse in the gun quarter,

and his function was to acquire semi-finished parts and to give these out

to specialized craftsmen, who undertook the assembly and finishing of the

gun. He purchased materials from the barrel-makers, lock-makers, sight-

stampers, trigger-makers, ramrod-forgers, gun-furniture makers, and, if he

were engaged in the military branch, from bayonet-forgers. All of these

were independent manufacturers executing the orders of several master gun-

makers. . . . Once the parts had been purchased from the “material-makers,”

as they were called, the next task was to hand them out to a long succession

of “setters-up,” each of whom performed a specific operation in connection

with the assembly and finishing of the gun. To name only a few, there were

those who pre-pared the front sight and lump end of the barrels; the jiggers,

who attended to the breech end; the stockers, who let in the barrel and lock

and shaped the stock; the barrel-strippers, who prepared the gun for rifling

and proof; the hardeners, polishers, borers and riflers, engravers, browners,

and finally the lock-freers, who adjusted the working parts”. (Allen (1929:

56-7 and 116-7), quoted in Stigler (1951: 192-3).)2With regard to the “Coase Theorem” Coase has said that, “It’s not about my work at

all. George Stigler, who’s a very nice man, wanted to pay me a compliment so he invented

the Coase theorem, but he named it Coase theorem, not the Stigler theorem. The reason

I don’t like it that it’s the proposition about the system in which transaction costs are

zero. Well that isn’t the way the system actually is, therefore, it’s a theoretical proposition

and I don’t like that.” With regard to the assumption of zero transaction costs Coase has

written, “The world of zero transaction costs has often been described as a Coasian world.

Nothing could be further form the truth. It is the world of modern economic theory, one

which I was hoping to persuade economists to leave.”

References

Allen, G. C. (1929). The Industrial Development of Birmingham and the

Black Country, 1860-1927, London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.

Stigler, George J. (1951). ‘The Division of Labor is Limited by the Extent

of the Market’, Journal of Political Economy, 59(3) June: 185-93

Publications of Ronald Coase

Books and Pamphlets

Published Balance Sheets as an Aid to Economic Investigation−Some Dif-ficulties (Accounting Research Association, 1938) (with R. S. Edwardsand R. F. Fowler).

The Iron and Steel Industry 1926-1935: An Investigation Based on the Ac-counts of Public Companies, Special Memorandum No. 49 of the Lon-don and Cambridge Economic Service (1939) (with R. S. Edwards andR. F. Fowler).

British Broadcasting: A Study in Monopoly (Longmans Green, London;Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1950).

Educational TV: Who Should Pay? Rational Debate Seminars, AmericanEnterprise Institute (1968) (with Edward W. Barrett). Also in Edu-cational Broadcasting Review (April 1968); and Television Quarterly(Winter 1968).

The Firm, the Market, and the Law (University of Chicago Press, 1988).(Foreign editions: Japanese, 1992; Swedish, 1992; Spanish, 1994; Chinese,1995; Italian, 1995; French, 1997).

Essays on the Institutional Structure of Production (Chinese, Shanghai,1990).

Essays on Economics and Economists (University of Chicago Press, 1994).

How China Became Capitalist (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) (with NingWang)

Articles

The Problem of Duopoly Reconsidered, 2 Review of Economic Studies 137-143 (1935).

Bacon Production and the Pig-Cycle in Great Britain, 2 Economica (n.s.)142-147 (1935) (with R. F. Fowler).

The Pig-Cycle: A Rejoinder, 2 Economica (n.s.) 423-428 (1935) (with R.F. Fowler).

The Pig-Cycle in Great Britain: An Explanation, 4 Economica (n.s.) 55(1937) (with R F. Fowler).

Some Notes on Monopoly Price, 5 Review of Economic Studies 17-31 (1937).

The Nature of the Firm, 4 Economica (n.s.) 386 (1937). Also in AmericanEconomic Association, Readings in Price Theory, selected by a Com-mittee of the American Economic Association (1952), and elsewhere.

Business Organization and the Accountant (a series of 12 articles), TheAccountant (OctoberDecember 1938). Also in Studies in Costing (DavidSolomons ed., R. D. Irwin Publishers, Homewood, Illinois, 1952); andin a shortened form under the title The Nature of Costs, in Studies inCost Analysis (David Solomons ed., R. D. Irwin Publishers, Homewood,Illinois, 1968), and elsewhere.

Rowland Hill and the Penny Post, 6 Economica (n.s.) 423-435 (1939).

The Analysis of Producers Expectations, 7 Economica (n.s.) 280-292 (1940)(with R. F. Fowler).

Price and Output Policy of State Enterprise: A Comment, 55 EconomicJournal 112 (1945).

B.B.C. Enquiry? 176 Spectator 446-447 (1946).

The Marginal Cost Controversy, 13 Economica (n.s.) 169 (1946).

Monopoly Pricing with Interrelated Costs and Demands, 13 Economica(n.s.) 278-284 (1946).

The Marginal Cost Controversy: Some Further Comments, 14 Economica(n.s.) 150 (1947).

The Economics of Uniform Pricing Systems, 15 The Manchester School ofEconomics and Social Studies 139-156 (1947).

The Origin of the Monopoly of Broadcasting in Great Britain, 14 Economica(n.s.) 189-210 (1947). Also in Reader in Public Opinion and Commu-nication (Free Press, Glencoe, Illinois, 1950).

Wire Broadcasting in Great Britain, 15 Economica (n.s.) 194-220 (1948).

The Nationalization of Electricity Supply in Great Britain, 26 Land Eco-nomics 1-16 (1950).

British Television Policy: Questions of Control and Finance, The [London]Times, September 9, 1950.

The B.B.C. Monopoly, Time and Tide, October 7, 1950.

Report on the B.B.C., Time and Tide, January 20, 1951.

The Beveridge Report and Private Enterprise in Broadcasting, The Owl(1951).

The Development of the British Television Service, 30 Land Economics 207-222 (1954).

The Postal Monopoly in Great Britain: An Historical Survey, in EconomicEssays in Commemoration of the Dundee School of Economics, 1931-5525-37 (J. K. Eastham ed., W. Culross, Dundee School of Economics,Dundee, 1955).

The Federal Communications Commission, 2 Journal of Law and Economics1-40 (1959). Also in the Yearbook of Broadcasting Articles, AnthologyEdition (Federal Publication, Washington DC, 1980) and elsewhere.

The Problem of Social Cost, 3 Journal of Law and Economics 1-44 (1960).Also in Readings in Microeconomics (William Breit and Harold M.Hochman eds, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, New York, 1968) and else-where.

Why Not Use the Pricing System in the Broadcasting Industry? The Free-man 52-57, July 1961.

The British Post Office and the Messenger Companies, 4 Journal of Lawand Economics 12-65 (1961).

The Outreach of Government: At What Point Peril? Analysis, October1962.

The Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee, 5 Journal of Law andEconomics 17-47 (1962).

Evaluation of Public Policy Relating to Radio and Television Broadcasting:Social and Economic Issues, 41 Land Economics 161-167 (1965).

The Economics of Broadcasting and Government Policy, 56 American Eco-nomic Review, Papers and Proceedings 440 (1966). Also in The Crisisof the Regulatory Commissions (P. W. McAvoy ed., Norton, New York,1970).

The Theory of Public Utility Pricing, in The Economics of Regulationof Public Utilities 96-106 (Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois,1966).

Consumer’s Surplus, in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences354-358 (Macmillan, New York, 1968).

Social Cost and Public Policy, in Exploring the Frontiers of Administration33-44 (George A. Edwards ed., York University, 1970).

The Theory of Public Utility Pricing and its Application, 1 Bell Journal ofEconomics 113 (1970). Also in The Crisis of the Regulatory Commis-sions (P.W. McAvoy ed., Norton, New York, 1970).

The Auction System and North Sea Gas: A Comment, 13 Journal of Lawand Economics 45-47 (1970).

Industrial Organization: A Proposal for Research, in Policy Issues and Re-search Opportunities in Industrial Organization (Victor R. Fuchs ed.,National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, 1972).

Durability and Monopoly, 15 Journal of Law and Economics 143-149 (1972).

The Appointment of Pigou as Marshall’s Successor, 15 Journal of Law andEconomics 473-485 (1972).

The Market for Goods and the Market for Ideas, 64 American EconomicReview, Papers and Proceedings 384 (1974). Also in Price Theory: Se-lected Readings 559 (Harry Townsend ed., Penguin, Hardwordsworth,2nd edn 1980).

Economists and Public Policy, in Large Corporations in a Changing Society169-187 (J. Fred Weston ed., New York University Press, New York,1974).

The Lighthouse in Economics, 17 Journal of Law and Economics 357-376(1974). Also in The Theory of Market Failure 255 (Tyler Cowen ed.,George Mason University Press, Washington, DC, 1988).

The Choice of the Institutional Framework: A Comment, 17 Journal of Lawand Economics 493-496 (1974).

Marshall on Method, 18 Journal of Law and Economics 25-31 (1975).

Adam Smiths View of Man, 19 Journal of Law and Economics 529-546(1976).

Introduction to Francis A. Allen, The Causes of Popular Dissatisfactionwith Legal Education, International Institute for Economic Research(Reprint Paper 3, 1977).

The Wealth of Nations. An Address by Professor R. H. Coase. Los Angeles,Foundation for Research in Economics and Education, 1976. Also 15Economic Inquiry 309-325 (1977).

Advertising and Free Speech, 6 Journal of Legal Studies 1 (1977). Also inAdvertising and Free Speech (Allen Hyman and M. Bruce Johnson eds,Lexington Books, Lexington, MA, 1977).

Economics and Contiguous Disciplines, in The Organization and Retrievalof Economic Knowledge 481-491 (Mark Perlman ed., Westview Press,Boulder, Colorado, 1977). Also in 7 Journal of Legal Studies 201 (1978).

Introduction, in Armen Alchian, Economic Forces at Work (Liberty Press,Indianapolis, Indiana,1977).

Economics and Biology: A Comment, 68 American Economic Review 244(1978).

Payola in Radio and Television Broadcasting, 22 Journal of Law and Eco-nomics 269-328 (1979).

Should the Federal Communications Commission Be Abolished?, in Regu-lation, Economics, and the Law 41 (Bernard H. Siegan ed., LexingtonBooks, Lexington MA, 1979) (with Nicholas Johnson).

The Coase Theorem and the Empty Core: A Comment, 24 Journal of Lawand Economics 183-187 (1981).

Duncan Black: A Biographical Sketch, in Toward a Science of Politics:Essays in Honor of Duncan Black 1-10 (G. Tullock ed., Virginia Poly-technic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, 1981).

Economics at LSE in the 1930s: A Personal View, 10 Atlantic EconomicJournal 31-34 (1982).

How Should Economists Choose? G. Warren Nutter Lecture in PoliticalEconomy (American Enterprise Institute, 1982).

George J. Stigler: An Appreciation, 6 Regulation 21 (1982).

The New Institutional Economics, 140 Zeitschrift fr die Gesamte Staat-swissenschaft (Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics) 229(1984).

Alfred Marshalls Mother and Father, 16 History of Political Economy 519(1984).

Professor Sir Arnold Plant: His Ideas and Influence, in The UnfinishedAgenda, Essays in Honour of Arthur Seldon, 79 (1986).

Arnold Plant, in 3 The New Palgrave, A Dictionary of Economics 891 (JohnEatwell, Murray Milgate, and Peter Newman, eds, Macmillan, NewYork, 1987).

The Nature of the Firm, 1. Origin, 2. Meaning, 3. Influence, 4 Journalof Law, Economics, and Organization, 3-47 (1988). Reprinted in TheNature of the Firm: Origins, Evolution, and Development (Oliver E.Williamson and Sidney G.Winter, eds, Oxford University Press, 1991).

Blackmail, 74 Virginia Law Review 655 (1988). Also as Occasional PaperNo. 24, Law School, University of Chicago (1988).

How Should Economists Choose? In Ideas, Their Origins and Their Con-sequences: Lectures to Commemorate the Life and Work of G. WarrenNutter 63 (Thomas Jefferson Center Foundation ed., American Institutefor Public Policy Research, Washington, DC, 1988).

Alfred Marshalls Family and Ancestry, in Alfred Marshall in Retrospect(Rita McWilliams Tullberg ed., Edward Elgar, Aldershot, UK, 1990).

Accounting and the Theory of the Firm, 12 Journal of Accounting andEconomics 3 (1990).

George J. Stigler, in Remembering the University of Chicago (Edward Shilsed., University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, 1991).

Contracts and the Activities of Firms, 34 Journal of Law and Economics451-452 (1991).

The Institutional Structure of Production: The 1991 Alfred Nobel MemorialPrize Lecture in Economic Sciences Les Prix Nobel and 82 AmericanEconomic Review 713-719 (September 1992) and elsewhere).

Coase on Posner on Coase and Concluding Comment, 149 Zeitschrift fr dieGesamte Staatswissenschaft (Journal of Institutional and TheoreticalEconomics) 96, 360 (1992).

Duncan Black 1908-1991, Proceedings of the British Academy, 82 (1993).

Law and Economics at Chicago, 36 Journal of Law and Economics 239-254(1993).

My Evolution as an Economist, in Lives of the Laureates 227 (William Brentand Roger W. Spencer eds, the MIT press, Cambridge, MA,1995).

The Present State of Economics, Lecture given at the University of Buck-ingham 1995.

The Problem of Social Costs: The Citations, 71 Chicago-Kent Law Review809, (1996).

Law and Economics and A. W. Brian Simpson, Journal of Legal Studies(Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, January 1996).

Foreward, Firms, Organizations and Contracts (Peter J. Buckley and JonathanMitchie eds, 1996).

Interview, Reason, January 1997.

Foreward, in Duncan Black, The Theory of Committees and Elections, andin Duncan Black and R.A. Newing, Committee Decisions with Comple-mentary Valuation, revised second edns (Kluwer, Boston, 1998).

Aaron Director, The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law(Paul Newman ed., Macmillan, New York, 1998).

The New Institutional Economics, 88 (2) American Economic Review, Pa-pers and Proceedings 72-74 (May 1998).

Comment on Thomas W. Hazlett, Assigning Property Rights to Radio Spec-trum Users: Why Did FCC License Auctions Take 67 Years? 41 Journalof Law and Economics 577-580 (1998).

Interview, Context (Fall 1998).

Interview, 2 (1) Newsletter of the International Society for New InstitutionalEconomics 3-10 (Spring 1999).

The Task of the Society, Opening Address to the Annual Conference, Septem-ber 17, 1999, 2 (2) Newsletter of the International Society for New In-stitutional Economics 1, 3-6 (Fall 1999).

The Acquisition of Fisher Body by General Motors, 43 Journal of Law andEconomics 15-31 (2000).

Why Economics Will Change, 4 (1) Newsletter of the International Societyfor New Institutional Economics 1, 4-7 (Summer 2002).

The Conduct of Economics: The Example of Fisher Body and GeneralMotors, 15 (2) Journal of Economics & Management Strategy 255-78(Summer 2006).

Criticism and Discussion

Discussion of The Trend of Public Employment in Great Britain and theUnited States, by Moses Abramovitz and Vera Eliasberg, 43 AmericanEconomic Review, Papers and Proceedings 234 (1953).

Comments on Full Costs, Cost Changes and Prices and Characteristics andTypes of Price Discrimination, in Universities National Bureau Com-mittee for Economic Research, Business Concentration, and Price Policy(1955).

Discussion of Direct Regulation and Market Performance in the AmericanEconomy, by Richard E. Caves, and The Effectiveness of Economic Reg-ulation: A Legal View, by Roger C. Cramton, 54 American EconomicReview, Papers and Proceedings 194 (1964). Also reprinted in revisedform in The Crisis of the Regulatory Commissions (P.W. McAvoy ed.,Norton, New York, 1970).

Discussion of Achieving Efficient Regulation of a Fishery, in Economics ofFisheries Management: A Symposium (A. D. Scott ed., University ofBritish Columbia, Vancouver, 1970).

Participation in a discussion by University of Chicago faculty members, Cen-ter for Policy Study, ”The Legal and Economic Aspects of Pollution,”University of Chicago, 1970.

Comment on The Muted Voice of the Consumer in Regulatory Agencies, byColston E. Warne, in A Critique of Administrative Regulation of Public

Utilities (W. J. Samuels and H. M. Trebing eds, East Lansing Institutionof Public Utilities, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan,1972).

Comment on Cheung On the New Institutional Economics and Panel Dis-cussion Remarks in Contract Economics (Lars Werin and HansWijkandereds, Blackwell, Oxford and Cambridge, 1992).

Roundtable Discussion, The Future of Law and Economics, 64 The Univer-sity of Chicago Law Review 1132, (Fall 1997).

Position Papers

Report by President Nixons Task Force on Productivity and Competition(George Stigler, Chairman 1969).

Working Paper for the Task Force on Productivity and Competition: TheConglomerate Merger 115 Congressional Record 15932,15938 (June 16,1969). Also in 1 Small Business and the Robinson-Patman Act, Hear-ings before the Special Subcommittee on Small Business, 91st Congress,1st session, appendix (October 7-9, 1969).

United States Policy Regarding the Law of the Seas, in Mineral Resources ofthe Deep Seabed, part 2, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Miner-als, Materials and Fuels of the Senate Committee on Interior and InsularAffairs, 93rd Congress, 2d session, at 1160 (March 5, 6, and 11, 1974).

Reviews

Reviewed Work: The Role of Mergers in the Growth of Large Firms by J.Fred Weston, 44 The American Economic Review 203-204 (1954).

Reviewed Work: Competition and Monopoly in Public Utility Industries byB. N. Behling, 49 The Economic Journal 757-758 (1939).

Reviewed Work: Report of the Committee on Prices in the Bituminous CoalIndustry, 6 (n.s.) Economica 480 (1939).

Reviewed Work: Monopoly and Competition in the English Coal Trade 1550-1850 by Paul M. Sweezy, 6 (n.s.) Economica 480-481 (1939).

Reviewed Work: Trade Revival in a Depressed Area by D. Caradog Jones ,6 (n.s.) Economica 232 (1939).

Reviewed Work: The British Gas Industry: An Economic Study by PhilipChantler, 48 The Economic Journal 727-728 (1938).

Reviewed Work: British Experiments in Public Ownership and Control byTerence H. O’Brien, 5 (n.s.) Economica 485-487 (1938).

Reviewed Work: The Framework of the Pricing System by E. H. PhelpsBrown, 4 (n.s.) Economica 476-477 (1937).

Reviewed Work: Earnings of Skilled Workers in a Manufacturing Enter-prise, 1878-1930 by E. B. Alderfer, 4 (n.s.) Economica 115-116 (1937).

Audio and Visual Media

Consumer Behavior, 32-minute videotaped discussion between Ronald Coaseand Gary Becker, The Idea Channel, 1995.

Transition in Eastern Europe, 30-minute videotaped discussion betweenRonald Coase and Gary Becker, The Idea Channel, 1995.

A Conversation with Ronald H. Coase, 62-minute videotaped interview con-ducted by Richard A. Epstein, The Intellectual Portrait Series, TheLiberty Fund Inc., 2002.

Centennial Coase Lecture, videotaped lecture by Ronald Coase at the Uni-versity of Chicago Law School, April 1, 2003.