Coasean Economics Law and Economics and the New Institutional Economics, 1998
Recent Economic Thought Series, Vol. 60

Upon hearing that Ronald Coase had been awarded the Nobel Prize, a fellow economist's first response was to ask with whom Coase had shared the Prize. Whether this response was idiosyncratic or not, I do not know; I expect not. Part of this type of reaction can no doubt be explained by the fact that Coase has often been characterized as an economist who wrote only two significant or influential papers: "The Nature of the Firm" (1937) and "The Problem of Social Cost" (1960). And by typical professional standards of "significant" and "influential" (i. e. , widely read and cited), this perception embodies a great deal of truth, even subsequent to Coase's receipt of the Prize. This is not to say that there have not been other important works - "The Marginal Cost Controversy" (1946) and "The Lighthouse in Economics" (1974) come immediately to mind here - only that in a random sample of, say, one hundred economists, one would likely find few who could list a Coase bibliography beyond the two classic pieces noted above, in spite of Coase's significant publication record. ' The purpose of this collection is to assess the development of, tensions within, and prospects for Coasean Economics - those aspects of economic analysis that have evolved out of Coase's path-breaking work. Two major strands of research can be identified here: law and economics and the New Institutional Economics.

Preface. 1. Transaction Costs, Production Costs, and the Passage of Time; R.N. Langlois. 2. The Coasean Tangle: The Nature of the Firm and the Problem of Historical Specificity; G.M. Hodgson. 3. The Three Great Puzzles of the Firm; S.E. Masten. 4. The Cost of Accosting Coase: A Reconciliatory Survey of Proofs and Disproofs of the Coase Theorem; M. Zelder. 5. The Coase Theorem and Some Puzzles on the Tort/Contract Boundary; V.P. Goldberg. 6. Property Rights, Transaction Costs, and Coase: One More Time; D.W. Allen. 7. Revisiting Legal Realism: The Law, Economics, and Organization Perspective; O.E. Williamson. 8. Ronald Coase on Economic Policy Analysis: Framework and Implications; W.J. Samuels, S.G. Medema. 9. Ronald's Way; N. Duxbury. 10. Coase, Communism and the `Black Box' of Soviet-Type Economies; P.J. Boettke. 11. Ronald Coase, the British Tradition, and the Future of Economic Method; R.O. Zerbe, Jr., S.G. Medema. 12. The Good Old Coase Theorem and the Good Old Chicago School: A Comment on Zerbe and Medema; D.N. McCloskey. 13. The Problem of Social Coase: Between Regulation and Free Market in Economic Methodology; U. Mäki. Index.

This collection assesses the development of `Coasean Economics' -- those aspects of economic analysis that have evolved out of the ground-breaking work of Ronald Coase. Two major strands of research can be identified here: law and economics and the New Institutional Economics. While both law and economics and the analysis of institutions by no means originated with or evolved solely from Coase's work, it is undeniable that his contributions, particularly in The Nature of the Firm and The Problem of Social Cost, played a major role in shaping the contemporary manifestations of these areas of inquiry. This volume focuses on the firm, the Coase theorem, and law and economics -- those aspects of economic analysis with which Coase is most closely identified. Along with these come several essay