The Problem of Social Cost is an article dealing with economic problem of externalities. It draws from a number of English legal cases and statutes to illustrate Coase's belief that legal rules are only justified by reference to a cost-benefit analysis, and that nuisances that are often regarded as being the fault of one party are more symmetric conflicts between the interests of the two parties.

This anthology presents, for the first time, full texts of the twenty most important works of American legal thought since 1890. Drawing on a course the editors teach at Harvard Law School, the book traces the rise and evolution of a distinctly American form of legal reasoning. These are the articles that have made these authors--from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., to Ronald Coase, from Ronald Dworkin to Catherine MacKinnon--among the most recognized names in American legal history. These authors proposed answers to the classic question: "What does it mean to think like a lawyer--an American lawyer?" Their answers differed, but taken together they form a powerful brief for the existence of a distinct and powerful style of reasoning--and of rulership. The legal mind is as often critical as constructive, however, and these texts form a canon of critical thinking, a toolbox for resisting and unravelling the arguments of the best legal minds. Each article is preceded by a short introduction highlighting the article's main ideas and situating it in the context of its author's broader intellectual projects, the scholarly debates of his or her time, and the reception the article received. Law students and their teachers will benefit from seeing these classic writings, in full, in the context of their original development. For lawyers, the collection will take them back to their best days in law school. All readers will be struck by the richness, the subtlety, and the sophistication with which so many of what have become the clichés of everyday legal argument were originally formulated.

Classic Papers in Natural Resource Economics Revisited is the first attempt to bring together a selection of classic papers in natural resource economics, alongside reflections by highly regarded professionals about how these papers have impacted the field. The seven papers included in this volume are grouped into five sections, representing the five core areas in natural resource economics: the intertemporal problem; externalities and market failure; property rights, institutions and public choice; the economics of exhaustible resources; and the economics of renewable resources. The seven papers are written by distinguished economists, five of them Nobelists. The papers, originally published between 1960 and 2000, addressed key issues in resource production, pricing, consumption, planning, management and policy. The original insights, fresh perspectives and bold vision embodied in these papers had a profound influence on the readership and they became classics in the field. This is the first attempt to publish original commentaries from a diverse group of scholars to identify, probe and analyse the ways in which these papers have impacted and shaped the discourse in natural resource economics. Although directed primarily at an academic audience, this book should also be of great appeal to researchers, policy analysts, and natural resource professionals, in general. This book was published as a series of symposia in the Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research.

Few other economists have been read and cited as often as R.H. Coase has been, even though, as he admits, "most economists have a different way of looking at economic problems and do not share my conception of the nature of our subject." Coase's particular interest has been that part of economic theory that deals with firms, industries, and markets—what is known as price theory or microeconomics. He has always urged his fellow economists to examine the foundations on which their theory exists, and this volume collects some of his classic articles probing those very foundations. "The Nature of the Firm" (1937) introduced the then-revolutionary concept of transaction costs into economic theory. "The Problem of Social Cost" (1960) further developed this concept, emphasizing the effect of the law on the working of the economic system. The remaining papers and new introductory essay clarify and extend Coarse's arguments and address his critics. "These essays bear rereading. Coase's careful attention to actual institutions not only offers deep insight into economics but also provides the best argument for Coase's methodological position. The clarity of the exposition and the elegance of the style also make them a pleasure to read and a model worthy of emulation."—Lewis A. Kornhauser, Journal of Economic Literature Ronald H. Coase was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 1991.

This volume features a series of essays which arose from a conference on economics, addressing the question: what is the nature of the firm in economic analysis? This paperback edition includes the Nobel Lecture of R.N. Case.

Theory and Measurement of Economic Externalities provides information on some analytical and empirical developments in the field of externalities. This book presents the function of turning out producer's goods in the form of better knowledge, analytical formulation, and approaches for application to current problems. Organized into five parts encompassing 12 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the notion of externalities in connection with analyses of economic welfare. This text then discusses the relationship between publicness and external diseconomies when either consumption or production or decision sets are nonconvex due to a high degree of externalities. Other chapters consider disproving the pessimistic conclusions concerning tax–subsidy schemes. This book discusses as well the solutions for the allocation of resources in an economy with public goods and interdependent preferences. The final chapter deals with a general framework for estimating externality production functions. This book is a valuable resource for economists.