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Ronald Coase's impact on economics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2014

MARY M. SHIRLEY ,
NING WANG  and
CLAUDE MÉNARD
MARY M. SHIRLEY*
Affiliation:
Ronald Coase Institute, USA
NING WANG*
Affiliation:
Ronald Coase Institute, USA; and Ronald Coase Center for the Study of the Economy, Zhejiang University, China
CLAUDE MÉNARD*
Affiliation:
Centre d’Economie de la Sorbonne, Université de Paris (Panthéon-Sorbonne), France
*
*Email: [email protected]
**Email: [email protected]
***Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Ronald Coase had a profound impact on scholarship worldwide, and not for his ideas alone. Coase's ideas about transaction costs, the nature of the firm, the role of government, and the problem of social cost have been hugely influential. Throughout his long life, he also worked to change the conduct of economics, urging economists to ground their conclusions in careful study of empirical reality rather than theories that work only on the blackboard. Less well known, perhaps, is his work to nurture and shape the emerging fields of law and economics and new institutional economics, or his support to young scholars studying institutional issues around the world. In his final years, he was preoccupied by the rapid transformation of China and the institutional structure of production. This article summarizes Coase's significant intellectual contributions to economics, pointing out along the way some of the traits that made him such a powerful thinker and exceptionally influential scholar.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Institutional Economics , Volume 11 , Issue 2: Ronald H. Coase Memorial Issue , June 2015 , pp. 227 - 244
Copyright
Copyright © Millennium Economics Ltd 2014 

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