Ronald Coase Quotes

Outside the firm, price movements direct production, which is co-ordinated through a series of exchange transactions on the market. Within a firm, these market transactions are eliminated and in place of the complicated market structure with exchange transactions is substituted the entrepreneur-co-ordinator, who directs production.

You should not forget that without all the work in law and economics, a great part of which has been supported by the John M. Olin Foundation, it is doubtful whether the importance of my work would have been recognized.

The law of property determines who owns something, but the market determines how it will be used.

In my youth it was said that what was too silly to be said may be sung. In modern economics it may be put into mathematics.

There is no doubt that the recognition by economists of the importance of the role of the firm in the functioning of the economy will prompt them to investigate its activities more closely.

What I have done is to show the importance for the working of the economic system of what may be termed the institutional structure of production.

A firm consist of the system of relationships which comes into existence when the direction of resources is dependent on an entrepreneur ... As a firm gets larger, there may be decreasing returns to the entrepreneur function, that is, the costs of organizing additional transactions within the firm may rise.

During the two centuries since the publication of 'The Wealth of Nations,' the main activity of economists, it seems to me, has been to fill the gaps in Adam Smith's system, to correct his errors and to make his analysis vastly more exact.

Data can't speak for itself; it's up to you to give it a voice. Try to speak truthfully.

In fact, a large part of what we think of as economic activity is designed to accomplish what high transaction costs would otherwise prevent or to reduce transaction costs so that individuals can negotiate freely and we can take advantage of that diffused knowledge of which Friedrich Hayek has told us.

I tend to regard the Coase theorem as a stepping stone on the way to an analysis of an economy with positive transaction costs.

Existing economics is a theoretical system which floats in the air and which bears little relation to what happens in the real world.

It is clear that these are alternative methods of co-ordinating production. Yet, having regard to the fact that, if production is regulated by price movements, production could be carried on without any organization at all might we ask, why is there any organization?

You get more irrationality within the family and in consumer behavior than you get, say, in the behavior of firms in their purchases.

Technology is at a point where we should allow multiple parties to occupy the same spectral space.

I hate when people ask me to: "Massage the data".

You wouldn't think there was a need for a Coase Theorem, really.

Ronnie had it right calling it Torture. That is a much more accurate description the way I see it.

Despite all the efforts of art dealers, the number of Rembrandts existing at a given time is limited; yet such paintings are commonly disposed of by auction.

People have used my views for purposes which are very different from mine.

I can't remember [of a good regulation]. Regulation of transport, regulation of agriculture - agriculture is a, zoning is z. You know, you go from a to z, they are all bad. There were so many studies, and the result was quite universal: The effects were bad

Roughly speaking, when you are dealing with business firms operating in a competitive system, you can assume that they're going to act rationally. Why? Because someone in a firm who buys things at $10 and sells them for $8.00 isn't going to last very long in that firm.

Economics as currently presented in textbooks and taught in the classroom does not have much to do with business management, and still less with entrepreneurship.

Changes like the telephone and telegraphy, which tend to reduce the cost of organizing spatially, will tend to increase the size of the firm.