Biography - Ronald H. Coase (1910 - )

Credit for this brief biographical profile and bibliography should go to Ivey student Fabrizio Di Muro. He is responsible for the content. Library staff have provided some minor editing and linked some of the entries to the collections held by the Western Libraries.

Brief Biography

[much of this information is derived from the autobiographical remarks made by Coase on this site: nobelprize.org]

Ronald Coase was born on December 29 th, 1910 at 3:25 PM in Willesden, a suburb of London. As a young boy, Coase suffered from weakness in his legs, which forced him to wear irons on his legs. Thus, his early school years were spent at a school for physical defectives run by a local council.

At age 12, Coase received a scholarship to attend the Kilburn Grammar School. He passed his matriculation examination in 1927 with distinction in history and chemistry. Since Coase lacked the required knowledge in Latin to study history, and did not enjoy doing the mathematics necessary to continue studying chemistry, he chose to pursue a bachelor’s degree in commerce. As part of his studies, he traveled to America to attempt to discover why American corporations were structured as they were. This project formed the basis of his 1937 article “The Nature of the Firm”.

After completing his Bachelor of Commerce in 1932, Coase held positions at the Dundee School of Economics, the University of Liverpool, and the London School of Economics. During the war, Coase entered the government, working as a statistician, first at the Forestry Commission, and then at the Central Statistical Office.

After the war, Coase emigrated to the United States, and found employment at University of Buffalo in 1951. In 1958, he left for the University of Virginia, where, for one year, he worked at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences. He spent the next five years in the university’s economics department, before moving on to the University of Chicago in 1964. Coase also edited The Journal of Law and Economics from 1964 to 1982.

Why is Ronald Coase well-known?

Ronald Coase is very well-known in the world of law and economics. However, he is probably best known for having received the 1991 Nobel Laureate in Economics (“for his discovery and clarification of the significance of transaction costs and property rights for the institutional structure and functioning of the economy.”)

Here is a link to Ronald Coase’s Nobel Prize Lecture:

http://www.geocities.com/econ_000harte/coase-lecture.html

Here are some news stories related to Coase being awarded the Nobel Prize:

http://nobelprize.org/economics/laureates/1991/press.html

http://www.boston.com/globe/search/stories/nobel/1991/1991i.html

http://www.boston.com/globe/search/stories/nobel/1991/1991f.html

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Coase_World.html

Why are Ronald Coase’s Ideas Relevant for Business/Organizations?

In his paper “The Nature of the Firm”, Coase puts forward the Nobel-prize winning idea that organizations exist to reduce transaction costs. If market transactions are too costly, then the firm might provide better governance structure than market transactions, because the coordination provided managers, entrepreneurs and employees within the firm is more efficient than the coordination provided by the market. Thus, the existence of the firm helps reduce transaction costs.

Coase also uses transaction costs to determine firm size. Quoting directly from The Nature of the Firm:

A firm will tend to expand until the costs of organizing an extra transaction within the firm become equal to the cost of carrying out the same transaction by means of an exchange on the open market or the cost of organizing in another firm

The Coase Theorem

In his 1960 paper entitled “The Problem of Social Cost”, Coase put forward the following logic, now entitled “The Coase Theorem”:

“in the absence of transaction costs, all government allocations of property are equally efficient, because interested parties will bargain privately to correct any externality. As a corollary, the theorem also implies that in the presence of transaction costs, government may minimize inefficiency by allocating property initially to the party assigning it the greatest utility.” (Wikipedia)

More Information on Ronald Coase

There is a lot of information on Ronald Coase on the internet. Here are a few of the better sites:

An interview of Ronald Coase in the 1997 Reason Magazine: http://reason.com/9701/int.coase.shtml

An interview of Ronald Coase in Context Magazine (scroll down for Coase):

http://www.contextmag.com/setFrameRedirect.asp?src=/archives/199809/Feature0lawAndDisorder.asp

An excellent web site about Ronald Coase and the Ronald Coase Institute, located in St. Louis, Missouri.

http://www.coase.org/index.htm

Journal Articles by Ronald H. Coase

[A complete Coase bibliography is found in 2006 on his web site at the University of Chicago Law School]

The Problem of Duopoly Reconsidered, 2 Review of Economic Studies 137-143 (1935).

Bacon Production and the Pig-Cycle in Great Britain, 2 Economica (n.s.) 142-147 (1935) (with R. F. Fowler).

The Pig-Cycle: A Rejoinder, 2 Economica (n.s.) 423-428 (1935) (with R. F. Fowler).

The Pig-Cycle in Great Britain: An Explanation, 4 Economica (n.s.) 55 (1937) (with R F. Fowler).

Some Notes on Monopoly Price, 5 Review of Economic Studies 17-31 (1937).

The Nature of the Firm, 4 Economica (n.s.) 386 (1937).

Business Organization and the Accountant (a series of 12 articles), The Accountant (October–December 1938).

Rowland Hill and the Penny Post, 6 Economica (n.s.) 423-435 (1939).

The Analysis of Producers’ Expectations, 7 Economica (n.s.) 280-292 (1940) (with R. F. Fowler).

Price and Output Policy of State Enterprise: A Comment, 55 Economic Journal 112 (1945).

B.B.C. Enquiry? 176 Spectator 446-447 (1946).

The Marginal Cost Controversy, 13 Economica (n.s.) 169 (1946).

Monopoly Pricing with Interrelated Costs and Demands, 13 Economica (n.s.) 278-284 (1946).

The Marginal Cost Controversy: Some Further Comments, 14 Economica (n.s.) 150 (1947).

The Economics of Uniform Pricing Systems, 15 The Manchester School of Economics and Social Studies 139-156 (1947).

The Origin of the Monopoly of Broadcasting in Great Britain, 14 Economica (n.s.) 189-210 (1947). Also in Reader in Public Opinion and Communication (Free Press, Glencoe, Illinois, 1950).

Wire Broadcasting in Great Britain, 15 Economica (n.s.) 194-220 (1948).

The Nationalization of Electricity Supply in Great Britain, 26 Land Economics 1-16 (1950).

The Development of the British Television Service, 30 Land Economics 207-222 (1954).

The Federal Communications Commission, 2 Journal of Law and Economics 1-40 (1959).

The Problem of Social Cost, 3 Journal of Law and Economics 1-44 (1960).

Why Not Use the Pricing System in the Broadcasting Industry? The Freeman 52-57, July 1961.

The British Post Office and the Messenger Companies, 4 Journal of Law and Economics 12-65 (1961).

The Outreach of Government: At What Point Peril? Analysis, October 1962.

The Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee, 5 Journal of Law and Economics 17-47 (1962).

Evaluation of Public Policy Relating to Radio and Television Broadcasting: Social and Economic Issues, 41 Land Economics 161-167 (1965).

The Economics of Broadcasting and Government Policy, 56 American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings 440 (1966).

The Theory of Public Utility Pricing and its Application, 1 Bell Journal of Economics 113 (1970).

The Auction System and North Sea Gas: A Comment, 13 Journal of Law and Economics 45-47 (1970).

Industrial Organization: A Proposal for Research, in Policy Issues and Research Opportunities in Industrial Organization (Victor R. Fuchs ed., National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, 1972).

Durability and Monopoly, 15 Journal of Law and Economics 143-149 (1972).

The Appointment of Pigou as Marshall’s Successor, 15 Journal of Law and Economics 473-485 (1972).

The Market for Goods and the Market for Ideas, 64 American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings 384 (1974).

The Lighthouse in Economics, 17 Journal of Law and Economics 357-376 (1974).

The Choice of the Institutional Framework: A Comment, 17 Journal of Law and Economics 493-496 (1974).

Marshall on Method, 18 Journal of Law and Economics 25-31 (1975).

Adam Smith’s View of Man, 19 Journal of Law and Economics 529-546 (1976).

The Wealth of Nations. An Address by Professor R. H. Coase. Los Angeles, Foundation for Research in Economics and Education, 1976. Also in 15 Economic Inquiry 309-325 (1977).

Advertising and Free Speech, 6 Journal of Legal Studies 1 (1977).

Economics and Contiguous Disciplines, in The Organization and Retrieval of Economic Knowledge 481-491 (Mark Perlman ed., Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1977). Also in 7 Journal of Legal Studies 201 (1978).

Economics and Biology: A Comment, 68 American Economic Review 244 (1978).

Payola in Radio and Television Broadcasting, 22 Journal of Law and Economics 269-328 (1979).

The Coase Theorem and the Empty Core: A Comment, 24 Journal of Law and Economics 183-187 (1981).

Economics at LSE in the 1930s: A Personal View, 10 Atlantic Economic Journal 31-34 (1982).

George J. Stigler: An Appreciation, 6 Regulation 21 (1982).

The New Institutional Economics, 140 Zeitschrift für die Gesamte Staatswissenschaft (Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics) 229 (1984).

Alfred Marshall’s Mother and Father, 16 History of Political Economy 519 (1984).

Professor Sir Arnold Plant: His Ideas and Influence, in The Unfinished Agenda, Essays in Honour of Arthur Seldon, 79 (1986).

Arnold Plant, in 3 The New Palgrave, A Dictionary of Economics 891 (John Eatwell, Murray Milgate, and Peter Newman, eds, Macmillan, New York, 1987).

Blackmail, 74 Virginia Law Review 655 (1988). Also as Occasional Paper No. 24, Law School, University of Chicago (1988).

Accounting and the Theory of the Firm, 12 Journal of Accounting and Economics 3 (1990).

Contracts and the Activities of Firms, 34 Journal of Law and Economics 451-452 (1991).

The Institutional Structure of Production: The 1991 Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize Lecture in Economic Sciences (Les Prix Nobel and 82 American Economic Review 713-719 (September 1992) and elsewhere).

Coase on Posner on Coase and Concluding Comment, 149 Zeitschrift für die GesamteStaatswissenschaft (Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics) 96, 360 (1992).

Duncan Black 1908-1991, Proceedings of the British Academy, 82 (1993).

Law and Economics at Chicago, 36 Journal of Law and Economics 239-254 (1993).

My Evolution as an Economist, in Lives of the Laureates 227 (William Brent and Roger W. Spencer eds, the MIT press, Cambridge, MA,1995).

The Present State of Economics, Lecture given at the University of Buckingham 1995.

The Problem of Social Costs: The Citations, 71 Chicago-Kent Law Review 809, (1996).

Law and Economics and A. W. Brian Simpson, Journal of Legal Studies (Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, January 1996).

Aaron Director, The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law (Paul Newman ed., Macmillan, New York, 1998).

The New Institutional Economics, 88 (2) American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings 72-74 (May 1998).

Comment on Thomas W. Hazlett, Assigning Property Rights to Radio Spectrum Users: Why Did FCC License Auctions Take 67 Years? 41 Journal of Law and Economics 577-580 (1998).

The Task of the Society, Opening Address to the Annual Conference, September 17, 1999, 2 (2) Newsletter of the International Society for New Institutional Economics 1, 3-6 (Fall 1999).

The Acquisition of Fisher Body by General Motors, 43 Journal of Law and Economics 15-31 (2000).

Why Economics Will Change, 4 (1) Newsletter of the International Society for New Institutional Economics 1, 4-7 (Summer 2002).

Journal Articles by Ronald H. Coase in the UWO Library

“The Nature of the Firm”
DBW circ photocopy 1358

“The Nature of the Firm” in The Nature of the Firm : Origins, Evolution, and Development edited by Oliver E. Williamson, Sidney G. Winter
DBW HD2326.N38 1991

“The Problem of Social Cost”
DBWCIRC photocopy 2579.73

“The Problem of Social Cost”
HUROVR HF5353.C65

Many of Coase’s articles can be found online through the library catalogue:

Here is a link to the online version of the Journal of Law and Economics:

http://www.jstor.org/browse/00222186?config=jstor

Here is a link to the online version of the American Economic Review:

http://www.jstor.org/browse/00222186?config=jstor

Books by Ronald H. Coase in the UWO Library

Blackmail
LAW KF9372.Z9C628 1988

British broadcasting; A Study in Monopoly [Published for] the London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London)
DBW HE8699.G7C6

The Firm, the Market, and the Law
DBW HD2326.C6 1988
King's HD2326.C7F5

Other Books by Ronald H. Coase