RIP Ronald Coase (1910 – 2013)

Ayer falleció Ronald Coase, a los 102 años de edad. Indiscutiblemente uno de los economistas más influyentes del siglo XX. Sus contribuciones le merecen un lugar entre los economistas que dieron forma a la economía en este siglo y a ser reconocido con el Nobel de Economía en el año 1991. La disciplina simplemente no hubiese sido la mismo sin Coase. La economía ha perdido a un grande que se ha mantenido activo hasta en sus últimos días. A la edad de 102 años Coase seguía escribiendo sobre economía. A la edad de 101 años publicó un libro en co-autoría con uno de sus alumnos; How China Became Capitalist (Coase and Wang.)

Coase fue una figura central en volver a poner las instituciones (y su relación con los costos de transacción) entre los temas centrales del análisis económico. Su trabajo (junto al de G. Calabresi) dio origen a nada menos que una disciplina dentro de al economía, el Law and Economics (análisis económico del derecho.) Los trabajos de Coase se encuentran entre los más citados en al disciplina.

A Coase también se le debe un panorama más amplio al problema de la firma (empresas en el mercado.) ¿Si las empresas son eficientes, por que no puede haber una empresa para todo el mercado? Fue la claridad de su análisis lo que hace que preguntas como estas hoy nos parezcan triviales, no siempre fue el caso.

Dejo una serie de links cuyos autores pueden expresarse con más autoridad que la mía sobre las contribuciones y personalidad de Coase. Luego dejo un pasaje de Larry White tomado de Clash of Economic Ideas que captura fielmente que Coase se encontraba a la altura de sus pares más influyentes (recuerdo haber escuchado esta anécdota por primera vez de boca de Adrian Guissarri en la UCA.)

• Ronald Coase, The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics.
• A Conversation with Ronald Coase (R. Epstein) -UFM Media
• University of Chicago: Ronald H. Coase, Founding Scholar in Law and Economics, 1910 – 2013 (Sarah Galer y Jeremy Manier.)
• Ronald Coase (1910 – 2013): He Kept his Hands Dirty (Ed. Lopez)

In 1959, Ronald Coase entered the Chicago home of Aaron Director for what was to be an unusual dinner party. The host and other guests were a who’s who of University of Chicago economists, including Milton Friedman, George Stigler, Arnold Harberger, John McGee, and fifteen others. The British-born and soft-spoken Coase, an economics professor at the University of Virginia, was in town to present a new paper at the University. In an earlier paper on the regulation of radio by the Federal Communications Commission, just published in The Journal of Law and Economics, Coase had made an argument that the Chicago crowd considered interesting but erroneous. The dinner was arranged to give Coase the chance he had requested to convince the skeptics that the argument was not in error.

In his published paper Coase argued that participants in a competitive market economy can reach an efficient allocation of resources even when neighboring activities clash, or in current jargon they can “internalize” what would otherwise be “negative externalities,” by making mutually agreeable side-payments. In the case of a doctor’s examination room bothered by a noisy candy factory next door, the doctor and confectioner can bargain to an efficient mix of respective operating hours. And not only can the market reach an efficient allocation but it will reach the same efficient allocation no matter which way (e.g. to the doctor or to the confectioner) the law initially assigns the rights in dispute, or conversely assigns the liability for damages caused by the clash, assuming negligible transaction costs and profit-maximizing behavior. Stigler labeled this proposition “the Coase Theorem.” In the case of potential interference among radio broadcasters, the main topic of Coase’s 1959 paper, a system of tradable private property rights in distinct broadcast frequencies will allow a system of competing broadcasters to avoid wavelength interference and to reach the efficient mix of station formats (news, talk, various types of music). No top-down assignment of licenses was necessary.

As editor of the Journal of Law and Economics, Director had suggested that Coase remove the “Coase Theorem” claim from his article, but Coase had stuck to his guns, and Director had let it appear in print. The stage was set for the after-dinner debate. George Stigler recalled the event: «We strongly objected to this heresy. Milton Friedman did most of the talking, as usual. He also did much of the thinking, as usual. In the course of two hours of argument the vote went from twenty against and one for Coase to twenty-one for Coase. What an exhilarating event! I lamented afterward that we had not had the clairvoyance to tape it.»

L. H. White. The Clash of Economic Ideas. Chapter 13.