Historical Figures Codexery

Ronald Coase

Economist who explained why firms exist and how property rights matter.

He is best known for two articles that introduced the concepts of transaction costs and the Coase theorem.[1] The 1991 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to British economist Ronald Harry Coase.[2]

Quick Facts

Birth name
Ronald Harry Coase
School of thought
New institutional economics, Chicago School of Economics
Born
29 December 1910
Birthplace
Willesden, London, England
Died
2 September 2013
Place of death
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Resting place
Graceland Cemetery, Chicago
Institution
  • University of Dundee
  • London School of Economics
  • University of Chicago
  • University of Virginia
  • University at Buffalo

Facts from the source article.

Life and work

He published "The Nature of the Firm" in 1937, explaining why firms exist to avoid transaction costs.[1][3][4] In 1960 he published "The Problem of Social Cost," which gave rise to the Coase theorem.[1][4] Coase moved to the United States in 1951 and worked at the University of Buffalo and the University of Virginia.[5][4] Due to leg weakness, Coase wore leg-irons as a child and was placed in a school for "physical defectives."[6][7][3]

In 1932, Coase earned a Bachelor of Commerce degree after studying at the London School of Economics.[8] Marian Ruth Hartung of Chicago and Ronald Coase were married on 7 August 1937 in Willesden, England.[9][4]

What the cited sources add

The "Looking for results" interview notes that Coase was placed in basket-weaving classes and received virtually no academics until age 10.[3] That same source states Coase was a socialist when he grasped the idea of spontaneous coordination in the marketplace.[3] The Guardian obituary reports that Coase's work provides the intellectual basis for carbon credit trading schemes.[4] The University of Chicago Law School account explains that Coase feared his 1960 paper had been widely misunderstood.[10]

Coase wrote that his aim was to show the role transaction costs play in fashioning economic institutions.[10] According to The Guardian obituary, Coase's last book, "How China Became Capitalist," was published in 2012 and written together with Ning Wang.[4]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Ronald Coase" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Coase, "Saving Economics from the Economists", Harvard Business Review, 1 December 2012; Henderson, "The Man Who Resisted 'Blackboard Economics'", The Wall Street Journal, 3 September 2013; Littlewood, "Ronald Coase obituary", The Guardian, 4 September 2013; Henderson, "The Man Who Resisted 'Blackboard Economics'", The Wall Street Journal, 3 September 2013 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Ronald Coase" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Hahn, "Ronald Harry Coase (1910–2013) Nobel-prize winning economist whose work inspired cap-and-trade", Nature, 2013, p. 449 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. "Looking for results", January 1997. facts only, no text reused. reason.com
  4. Littlewood, "Ronald Coase obituary", The Guardian, 4 September 2013. facts only, no text reused. theguardian.com
  5. Wikipedia, "Ronald Coase" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "U. of Chicago Professor Wins Nobel Economics Prize" (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Ronald Coase" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Who's Who in America 2000, Millennium Edition", Marquis Who's Who, 1999, p. 891; "The International Who's Who", Routledge, 2006, p. 406; "Who's Who 2007: An Annual Biographical Dictionary", A & C Black, 2007, p. 447 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Ronald Coase" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Ronald Coase. 'Nobel Prize Autobiography', 1991"; Breit, William and Barry T. Hirsch. Lives of the Laureates, 4th ed. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 2004. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Ronald Coase" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Ronald Coase. 'Nobel Prize Autobiography', 1991" (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "Ronald Coase" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The International Who's Who", Routledge, 2006, p. 406; Littlewood, "Ronald Coase obituary", The Guardian, 4 September 2013; Lyons, "Ronald H. Coase, a Law Professor And Leading Economist, Dies at 102", The New York Times, 3 September 2013; Galer, "Ronald H. Coase, Founding Scholar in Law and Economics, 1910–2013", Law.uchicago.edu (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  10. The Problem of Social Cost University of Chicago Law School. facts only, no text reused. law.uchicago.edu

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Ronald Coase (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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