Ec 970

Transaction Costs
and Property Rights

Ronald Coase
1991

for his discovery and

clarification of the significance of
transaction costs and property
rights for the institutional
structure and functioning of the
economy

Elinor Ostrom

Oliver Williamson
2009

Elinor Ostrom for her analysis of

economic governance, especially
the commons and Oliver E.
Williamson for his analysis of
economic governance, especially
the boundaries of the firm

Ronald Coase

The Nature of the Firm (1937)

The Problem of Social Cost (1960)
The Lighthouse in Economics (1974)

Coase Theorem
dinner party at Aaron Directors
house at the University of Chicago
George Stigler, Milton Friedman, and others

If you torture the data long

enough, it will confess.

Oliver Williamson

vertical integration
asset specificity
contract complexity
incomplete contracts
contract theory

Elinor Ostrom

governance of the commons

Tragedy of the Commons
yet, co-operation widely found