Remembering Ronald Coase
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
Remembering Ronald Coase
| Author | Larry Downes |
|---|---|
| Published | September 3, 2013 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Larry Downes’s short Harvard Business Review note, published the day after Ronald Coase died at 102 — a commemorative entry point to the economist who asked why firms exist at all. |
Where I heard about it
- Brendan McCord — on his Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List (March 2026), in the Institutions, Property Rights, and the Law section, which deliberately mixes primary papers with short accessible pieces about them. This one sits immediately after Coase’s own “The Problem of Social Cost” and immediately before David Friedman’s The World According to Coase. The full list is on The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List.
About this edition
An article, not a book: published September 3, 2013, a commemorative note rather than an analytic essay. The run it sits in on the list also includes “The Nature of the Firm” and a late Coase interview, and is organised around Coase’s two famous papers — the 1937 question of why firms exist at all, answered by the cost of transacting, and the 1960 reframing of externalities as a question of how rights are assigned and whether the parties can bargain.
Connections
- Ronald Coase — the economist the piece commemorates.
- Institutions — the field his two papers founded.
- The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List — the curriculum this came from.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.