================= HES POSTING ================= Hi folks, This is my first posting to this list having only recently subscribed. My name is Barkley Rosser and I am a Professor of Economics at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Anyway, I wanted to pose a question to you all that was discussed with little resolution on another list: Where did the concept of "externality" come from? I would note that Pigou is usually associated with it but he never used this term to the best of my knowledge, preferring to talk about "social costs" instead. This was still the dominant terminology in 1960 when Ronald Coase wrote his famous article from which others deduced "the Coase Theorem." However, by a decade after that the term "externality" had become well entrenched in the public finance textbooks just in time for the new discipline of environmental economics to pick it up as that discipline emerged out of "public finance," so to speak, public choice still being a sideshow then and the modern "public economics" that presumably includes both of those (and more) having not yet emerged. Thanks in advance for any insights or information anybody on the list might have with regard to this question. Barkley Rosser [log in to unmask] ============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]