Abstract
In “The problem of social cost” (1960), Ronald H. Coase argued that what are exchanged are property rights and that the operation of the price system requires these rights to be defined. Coase was more interested in how property rights are (or should be) allocated and exchanged than in their content or definition. He insisted that factors of production must be considered as property rights, but conversely, property rights, even when they relate to nuisances, are nothing more than extra production costs.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Allen DW (1991) What are transaction costs. Res Law Econ 14:1–18
Barzel Y (1989) Economic analysis of property rights. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Bertrand E (2015) ‘The fugitive’: the figure of the judge in Coase’s economics. J Inst Econ. 11(2):413–435
Calabresi G, Melamed AD (1972) Property rules, liability rules, and inalienability: one view of the cathedral. Harv Law Rev 85:1089–1128
Coase RH (1959) The federal communications commission. J Law Econ 2:1–40
Coase RH (1960) The problem of social cost. J Law Econ 3:1–44
Coase RH (1977) Review of: selected economic essays and addresses by Arnold Plant. J Econ Lit 15:86–88
Coase RH (1988) The firm, the market and the law. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Coase RH (1992) The institutional structure of production. Am Econ Rev 82:713–719
Demsetz H (1967) Toward a theory of property rights. Am Econ Rev 57:347–359
Merrill TW, Smith HE (2001) What happened to property in law and economics? Yale Law J 111:357–398
Merrill TW, Smith HE (2011) Making Coasean property more Coasean. J Law Econ 54:S77–S104
Posner RA (1972) Economic analysis of law. Little, Brown, Boston
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this entry
Cite this entry
Bertrand, E. (2015). Coase and Property Rights. In: Backhaus, J. (eds) Encyclopedia of Law and Economics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7883-6_6-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7883-6_6-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-7883-6
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Economics and FinanceReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences