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Int Rev Econ (2014) 61:93108
DOI 10.1007/s12232-014-0206-8
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Antonio Nicita
Received: 1 September 2013 / Accepted: 2 April 2014 / Published online: 1 May 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014
Abstract Over almost a century, Ronald Coases works have largely differed in their contents. Under the general umbrella of the law and economics eld, Coases scientic production has indeed covered a large variety of topics and policy issues. However, Coases analyses reveal a common framework, if not a structured methodology. We highlight ve key ingredients of the Coasean methodology and apply them to revisit Coases main contributions. The resulting picture reveals a comprehensive theory of institutional moving equilibrium, where the institutional design of socioeconomic transactions is affected by the dimension of transaction costs.
Keywords Ronald Coase Law and economics Coase legacy Property
rights
JEL Classication B15 D23 D62
1 Introduction
Ronald Coase is among the most inuential and best-cited economists in the past 50 years. He died in 2013. In his long life, he had been involved in numerous debates on his inquiries. The most famous debate was held in Chicago at a dinner at Aaron Directors home, founder of The Journal of Law in Economics, where Milton Friedman, George Stigler, Lloyd Mints, Arnold Harberger and John McGee, challenged Coases theories on property rights. After a long speech, Coase won and
A. Nicita (&)
Department of Economics and Law, University of Rome-La Sapienza, Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected]
A. Nicita
Italian Communications Authority (AGCOM), Rome, Italy
The legacy of R. Coase (19102013): toward a theory of institutional moving equilibrium?
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what the colleagues considered an error at least and at worst a heresy, soon became a brilliant idea, deserving years later the Prize in Memory of Nobel.
However, over the years, in many articles Coase had to come back to his theories to explain how his vision was wider and more open than usually thought.
The wide scholarly literature which has been developed on the Coasean legacy, focused on the economics of institutions and on the institutional frames surrounding market transactions. This tradition has progressively increased the degree of complexity of the analysis, often trespassing the disciplinary boundaries of social sciences, including law, sociology and political science. Since Coase, economic theories of...