Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Winter 2014
Abstract
Over 50 years ago, in “The Problem of Social Cost,” Ronald Coase (1960) attempted to reorient the economics profession’s treatment of externalities. He wanted to draw economists’ attention away from the world of pure competition as a policy standard and investigate the consequences of transaction costs and property rights for the operation of markets. In 1991, he was awarded the Nobel prize 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” (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 1991). The Academy cited both his 1960 article and his 1937 article “The Nature of the Firm.”
Copyright Statement
This document was originally published by Cato Institute in Cato Journal. Copyright restrictions may apply.
Publication Information
Black, Geoffrey; Dalton, D. Allen; Islam, Samia; and Batteen, Aaron. (2014). "The Coasean Framework of the New York City Watershed Agreement". Cato Journal, 34(1), 1-32.