Ronald Coase

Jan 17, 2025 | econlib.org | David Henderson |Ronald Coase |Kevin Corcoran |Scott Sumner

Fellow economist Susan Woodward sent me this anecdote about Ronald Coase and gambling that I thought worth sharing. It led me to remember my own interesting story about gambling and one famous economist. Bob Hall [her husband] and I were talking about the 1987 Coase conference at Yale, which I attended but Bob did not.

Jul 24, 2024 | econtalk.org | Amy Willis |Arthur C. Pigou |Ronald Coase

For all those who have taken an economics course, you’ve no doubt heard plenty about market failure. I suspect you’ve heard relatively less about government failure. Part of the allure of the public choice tradition for me has always been its very clear explication of the latter. But in this episode, leave it to perennial favorite Mike Munger to put a wrinkle in my contemplative ease.

May 30, 2024 | econlib.org | Kevin Corcoran |Ronald Coase |Art Carden |David Henderson

There are a wide range of arguments for what makes a state legitimate, or what confers authority on a state in such a way as to create a duty to obey. There is one class of argument I’ve always found unsatisfying, and recently while pondering it I realized why it always seemed to fall short in my mind. The argument I have in mind is found in the work of thinkers like Thomas Christiano, author of The Rule of the Many: Fundamental Issues of Democratic Theory.

May 17, 2024 | econlib.org | Bruce Yandle |Adam Smith |Ronald Coase |Peter Boettke

Click-a-ty-clack, click-a-ty-clack . . ., click-a-ty-clack.  Those were the sounds that regularly echoed down the second-floor hallway of Clemson University’s Sirrine Hall in the 1980s and before. Those sounds of metal-on-metal could be expected by the economists on the floor at 10:00 in the morning, carrying a clear message: “Time for coffee!” The sounds came unmistakably from Professor Hugh Macaulay’s steel leg brace that he had worn since he suffered a bullet wound in France in World War II.

Apr 17, 2024 | econlib.org | Jon Murphy |Ronald Coase |Scott Sumner |Kevin Corcoran

In an earlier post, I listed some questions for interventionists to consider before advocating their interventions. This is part of my ongoing crusade to get interventionists to think about things as they actually are as opposed to a blank slate. These two modes of thinking I call “status quo reasoning” (seeing the world as it is) versus “state of nature reasoning” (seeing the world as a blank slate). Some recent research demonstrates the importance of status quo reasoning.