Ronald Coase Quotes

British economist and Nobel laureate (1910–2013)

Ronald Harry Coase (December 29, 1910 – September 2, 2013) was a British economist and the Clifton R. Musser Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Chicago Law School. He received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1991.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Native Name: Ronald Harry Coase

Alternative Names: R. H. Coase • Ronald H. Coase

From Wikidata (CC0)

Transaction costs were used in the one case to show that if they are not included in the analysis, the firm has no purpose, while in the other I showed, as I thought, that if transaction costs were not introduced into the analysis, for the range of problems considered, the law had no purpose.

American institutionalists were not theoretical but anti-theoretical.... Without a theory they had nothing to pass on except a mass of descriptive material waiting for a theory, or a fire.

In my view, what is wanted in industrial organization is a direct approach to the problem. This would concentrate on what activities firms undertake, and would endeavor to discover the characteristics of the groupings of activities within firms. Which activities tend to be associated and which do not? The answer may well differ for different kinds of firm.

The traditional approach has tended to obscure the nature of the choice that has to be made. The question is commonly thought of as one in which A inflicts harm on B and what has to be decided is: how should we restrain A? But this is wrong. We are dealing with a problem of a reciprocal nature. To avoid the harm to B would inflict harm on A. The real question that has to be decided is: should A be allowed to harm B or should B be allowed to harm A?