Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-42gr6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T17:09:50.684Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

1966 AND ALL THAT: CODIFICATION, CONSOLIDATION, CREEP, AND CONTROVERSY IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE COASE THEOREM

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 July 2014

Steven G. Medema
Steven G. Medema*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO 80217-3364, USA. Email: steven.medema@ucdenver.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The year 1966 was central to the history of the Coase theorem debates, featuring the entry of the idea of a ‘Coase theorem’ into economic discourse and the eruption of the controversy over the the correctness of Coase’s negotiation result. This paper examines economists’ treatments of Coase’s result in 1966 and through the remainder of the decade, a period during which its place in the professional discourse began to solidify and three ‘camps’ began to develop around it: those who believed Coase’s result correct but of limited real-world applicability, those who found it relevant for explaining and devising policy with regard to a wide swath of externality-related phenomena, and those who argued and purported to demonstrate that this result was simply incorrect or wrong-headed on one or another grounds.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , September 2014 , pp. 271 - 303
Copyright
Copyright © The History of Economics Society 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alchian, Armen A. 1961. Some Economics of Property. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation.Google Scholar
Alchian, Armen A. 1965. “Some Economics of Property Rights.” Il Politico 30 (4): 816–829.Google Scholar
Anonymous. 1969. “Readings in Microeconomics.” The American Economist 13 (Fall): 135–169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashley, John W., Kleinsorge, Paul L., and Kunreuther, Howard. 1967. “Discussion.” American Economic Review 57 (2): 374–379.Google Scholar
Ayres, Robert U., and Kneese, Allen V.. 1969. “Production, Consumption, and Externalities.” American Economic Review 59 (3): 282–297.Google Scholar
Baldwin, Robert E. 1969. “The Case Against Infant-Industry Tariff Protection.” Journal of Political Economy 77 (3): 295–305.Google Scholar
Baumol, William J. 1972. “On Taxation and the Control of Externalities.” American Economic Review 62 (3): 307–322.Google Scholar
Baumol, William J., and Oates, Wallace E.. 1975. The Theory of Environmental Policy: Externalities, Public Outlays, and the Quality of Life. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Bertrand, Elodie. 2010. “The Three Roles of the ‘Coase Theorem’ in Coase’s Works.” European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 17 (October): 975–1000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowman, Ward. 1966. “The New Haven, a Passenger Railroad for Nonriders.” Journal of Law and Economics 9 (October): 49–59.Google Scholar
Bramhall, David F., and Mills, Edwin S.. 1966. “A Note on the Asymmetry Between Fees and Payments.” Water Resources Research 2 (3): 615–616.Google Scholar
Buchanan, James M., and Stubblebine, William C.. 1962. “Externality.” Economica 29 (116): 371–384.Google Scholar
Calabresi, Guido. 1965. “The Decision for Accidents: An Approach to Nonfault Allocation of Costs.” Harvard Law Review 78 (4): 713–745.Google Scholar
Cheung, Steven N. S. 1968. “Private Property Rights and Sharecropping.” Journal of Political Economy 76 (Nov.–Dec.): 1107–1122.Google Scholar
Cheung, Steven N. S. 1969a. The Theory of Share Tenancy: With Special Application to Asian Agriculture and the First Phase of Taiwan Land Reform. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Cheung, Steven N. S. 1969b. “Transaction Costs, Risk Aversion, and the Choice of Contractual Arrangements.” Journal of Law and Economics 12 (1): 23–42.Google Scholar
Coase, Ronald H. 1937. “The Nature of the Firm.” Economica 4 (16): 386–405.Google Scholar
Coase, Ronald H. 1959. “The Federal Communications Commission.” Journal of Law and Economics 2 (1): 1–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coase, Ronald H. 1960. “The Problem of Social Cost.” Journal of Law and Economics 3 (Oct.): 1–44.Google Scholar
Coase, Ronald H. 1988. The Firm, the Market, and the Law. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Commons, John R. 1924. Legal Foundations of Capitalism. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Dahlman, Carl J. 1979. “The Problem of Externality.” Journal of Law and Economics 22 (1): 141–162.Google Scholar
Dales, John H. 1968a. “Land, Water, and Ownership.” Canadian Journal of Economics / Revue Canadienne D’Economique 1 (4): 791–804.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dales, John H. 1968b. Pollution, Property & Prices: An Essay in Policy-Making and Economics. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Davies, David. 1965. “Financing Urban Functions and Services.” Law and Contemporary Problems 30 (1): 127–161.Google Scholar
Davis, Otto A., and Kamien, Morton I.. 1969. “Externalities, Information and Alternative Collective Action.” In The Analysis and Evaluation of Public Policy—The PPB System: A Compendium of Papers Submitted to the Subcommittee on Economy in Government of the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office for the Joint Economic Committee.Google Scholar
Davis, Otto A., and Whinston, Andrew B.. 1965. “Some Notes on Equating Private and Social Cost.” Southern Economic Journal 32 (2): 113–126.Google Scholar
Davis, Otto A., and Whinston, Andrew B.. 1967. “On the Distinction Between Public and Private Goods.” American Economic Review 57 (2): 360–373.Google Scholar
Demsetz, Harold. 1964. “The Exchange and Enforcement of Property Rights.” Journal of Law and Economics 7 (Oct.): 11–26.Google Scholar
Demsetz, Harold. 1966. “Some Aspects of Property Rights.” Journal of Law and Economics 9 (Oct.): 61–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Demsetz, Harold. 1967. “Toward a Theory of Property Rights.” American Economic Review 57 (2): 347–359.Google Scholar
Demsetz, Harold. 1968. “The Cost of Transacting.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 82 (Feb.): 33–53.Google Scholar
Demsetz, Harold. 1969. “Contracting Cost and Public Policy.” In The Analysis and Evaluation of Public Policy—The PPB System: A Compendium of Papers Submitted to the Subcommittee on Economy in Government of the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office for the Joint Economic Committee.Google Scholar
Dolbear, F. Trenery Jr. 1967. “On the Theory of Optimum Externality.” American Economic Review 57 (1): 90–103.Google Scholar
Ellickson, Robert C. 1991. Order Without Law: How Neighbors Settle Disputes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Freeman III, A. Myrick. 1967. “Bribes and Charges: Some Comments.” Water Resources Research 3 (1): 287–288.Google Scholar
Friedman, Milton. 1953. “The Methodology of Positive Economics.” In Essays in Positive Economics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 3–43.Google Scholar
Haveman, Robert H., Gaffney, Mason, and Maass, Arthur. 1967. “Discussion.” American Economic Review 57 (2): 190–196.Google Scholar
Hirsch, Werner Z., and Shapiro, David L.. 1967. “Some Economic Implications of City Planning.” UCLA Law Review 14 (Aug.): 1312–1327.Google Scholar
Hirshleifer, Jack. 1976. Price Theory and Applications. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Hirshleifer, Jack., DeHaven, James C., and Milliman, Jerome W.. 1960. Water Supply: Economics, Technology, and Policy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hohfeld, Wesley. 1913. “Some Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning.” Yale Law Journal 23 (Nov.): 16–59.Google Scholar
Kamien, Morton I., Schwartz, Nancy L., and Trenery Dolbear, F.. 1966. “Asymmetry Between Bribes and Charges.” Water Resources Research 2 (1): 147–157.Google Scholar
Kitch, Edmund W. 1983. “The Fire of Truth: A Remembrance of Law and Economics at Chicago, 1932–1970.” Journal of Law and Economics 26 (1): 163–234.Google Scholar
Kneese, Allen V. 1964. The Economics of Regional Water Quality Management. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press.Google Scholar
Kneese, Allen V., and Bower, Blair T.. 1968. Managing Water Quality: Economics, Technology, Institutions. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press for Resources for the Future.Google Scholar
Kneese, Allen V., and Mäler, Karl-Göran. 1973. “Bribes and Charges in Pollution Control: An Aspect of the Coase Controversy.” Natural Resources Journal 13 (Oct.): 705–716.Google Scholar
Knight, Frank H. 1924. “Some Fallacies in the Interpretation of Social Cost.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 38 (4): 582–606.Google Scholar
Lave, Lester B. 1968. “Safety in Transportation: The Role of Government.” Law and Contemporary Problems 33 (3): 512–535.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Long, Millard F., and Feldstein, Paul J.. 1967. “Economics of Hospital Systems: Peak Loads and Regional Coordination.” American Economic Review 57 (2): 119–129.Google Scholar
Medema, Steven G. 2009. The Hesitant Hand: Taming Self-Interest in the History of Economic Ideas. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Medema, Steven G. 2011a. “A Case of Mistaken Identity: George Stigler, ‘The Problem of Social Cost,’ and the Coase Theorem.” European Journal of Law and Economics 31 (1): 11–38.Google Scholar
Medema, Steven G. 2011b. “Chicago Price Theory and Chicago Law and Economics: A Tale of Two Transitions.” In Van Horn, Rob, Mirowski, Philip, and Stapleford, Thomas, eds., Building Chicago Economics: New Perspectives on the History of America’s Most Powerful Economics Program. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 151–179.Google Scholar
Medema, Steven G. 2014a. “The Curious Treatment of the Coase Theorem in Environmental Economics, 1960–1979.” Review of Environmental Economics and Policy 8 (Winter): 39–57.Google Scholar
Medema, Steven G. 2014b. “‘Exceptional and Unimportant’? Externalities in Economic Analysis, 1940–1960.” Working Paper, University of Colorado Denver.Google Scholar
Medema, Steven G. 2014c. “Rethinking Externalities: Coase’s Negotiation Result Before the ‘Coase Theorem’.” Working Paper, University of Colorado Denver.Google Scholar
Medema, Steven G., and Zerbe, Richard O. Jr. 2000. “The Coase Theorem.” In Bouckaert, Boudewijn and Geest, Gerrit De, eds., The Encyclopedia of Law and Economics. Aldershot: Edward Elgar, pp. 836–892.Google Scholar
Mirowski, Philip, and Plehwe, Dieter, eds. 2009. The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making of the Neoliberal Thought Collective. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Mishan, Ezra J. 1965. “Reflections on Recent Developments in the Concept of External Effects.” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science / Revue Canadienne D’Economique Et De Science Politique 31 (1): 3–34.Google Scholar
Mishan, Ezra J. 1967a. “Pareto Optimality and the Law.” Oxford Economic Papers 19 (3): 255–287.Google Scholar
Mishan, Ezra J. 1967b. The Costs of Economic Growth. New York: Frederick A. Praeger.Google Scholar
Mishan, Ezra J. 1971. “The Postwar Literature on Externalities: An Interpretative Essay.” Journal of Economic Literature 9 (1): 1–28.Google Scholar
Moore, John H. 1968. “Congestion and Welfare—Comment.” Economic Journal 78 (309): 157–165.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nutter, G. Warren. 1968. “The Coase Theorem on Social Cost: A Footnote.” Journal of Law and Economics 11 (2): 503–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearce, David W. and Sturmey, Stanley George. 1966. “Private and Social Costs and Benefits: A Note on Terminology.” Economic Journal 76 (301): 152–158.Google Scholar
Pigou, Arthur C. 1932. The Economics of Welfare. Third edition. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Reder, Melvin W. 1982. “Chicago Economics: Permanence and Change.” Journal of Economic Literature 20 (1): 1–38.Google Scholar
Robbins, Lionel. 1932. An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Samuelson, Paul A. 1963. “Modern Economic Realities and Individualism.” Texas Quarterly 6: 128–139.Google Scholar
Schmid, A. Allan. 1967. “Nonmarket Values and Efficiency of Public Investments in Water Resources.” American Economic Review 57 (2): 158–168.Google Scholar
Stigler, George J. 1942. The Theory of Competitive Price. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Stigler, George J. 1943. “The New Welfare Economics.” American Economic Review 33 (2): 355–359.Google Scholar
Stigler, George J. 1961. “The Economics of Information.” Journal of Political Economy 69 (3): 213–225.Google Scholar
Stigler, George J. [1946, 1952] 1966. The Theory of Price. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Stigler, George J. 1988. Memoirs of An Unregulated Economist. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Stiglitz, Joseph E. 1974. “Incentives and Risk Sharing in Agriculture.” Review of Economic Studies 41 (Apr.): 219–255.Google Scholar
Turvey, Ralph. 1957. The Economics of Real Property. London: George Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Van Horn, Robert, Mirowski, Philip, and Stapleford, Thomas A., eds. 2011. Building Chicago Economics. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wellisz, Stanislaw. 1964. “On External Diseconomies and the Government-Assisted Invisible Hand.” Economica 31 (124): 345–362.Google Scholar