SHOE Archives

Societies for the History of Economics

SHOE@YORKU.CA

Options: Use Forum View

Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Show All Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Subject:
From:
Pat Gunning <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Societies for the History of Economics <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 18 Jan 2010 08:29:54 -0500
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (27 lines)
Good job, Altug. I agree with your interpretation of the theorem in 
your chapter 1, although I did not read your entire book. There were 
many who did not fall into Stigler's quicksand, however. My guess is 
that most of them gave up trying to argue which interpretation is 
correct and just got on with the task of applying the theorem, as you 
presented it.

I am referring specifically to those who pursued the property rights 
agenda suggested in Coase's paper. I noticed that your list of 
references contained nothing on Harold Demsetz, whose work did more 
to clarify the theorem than any other in my view. Your list does 
contain several entries for Douglass North, however, so you 
presumably realize Coase's influence on North. Noticeably absent also 
was Furubotn and Pejovich's 1972 JEL paper on the broad scope of the 
economic theory of property rights, to which Coase's article pointed.

There is also a large literature on institutions in which the best 
writers appreciate that Coase's social cost paper and his theory of 
the firm paper are complementary contributions to a new theory of 
institutions and organization. You probably appreciate some of this 
because I note your two references to Williamson.

Hopefully, the history of economic thought is more than a history 
that can be represented by the mathematical idea of path dependence.

Pat Gunning

ATOM RSS1 RSS2