Armen Alchian, an American economist born in Fresno, California, is in many ways like ronald coase. Like Coase, Alchian has published only a few articles, but very few are unimportant. And like Coase’s, many of Alchian’s articles are widely cited. Many students and others who read economics are disturbed by economists’ assumptions that companies maximize […]| Econlib
James Buchanan Virginia Political Economy was born in the foyer of the Social Science Building at the University of Chicago early in 1948. In a casual conversation with a fellow graduate student, Warren Nutter, I discovered that we shared an evaluation and diagnosis of developments in Economics, the discipline with which we were about to […]| Econlib
The Austrian school of economics was founded in 1871 with the publication of Carl Menger’s Principles of Economics. menger, along with william stanley jevons and leon walras, developed the marginalist revolution in economic analysis. Menger dedicated Principles of Economics to his German colleague William Roscher, the leading figure in the German historical school, which dominated economic […]| Econlib
In 2009, Oliver E. Williamson, along with elinor ostrom, was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics. Williamson received it “for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm.” He did this by bringing together economics, organization theory, and contract law. According to the Nobel committee, Williamson provided “a theory of why some […]| Econlib
Positive externalities are benefits that are infeasible to charge to provide; negative externalities are costs that are infeasible to charge to not provide. Ordinarily, as Adam Smith explained, selfishness leads markets to produce whatever people want; to get rich, you have to sell what the public is eager to buy. Externalities undermine the social benefits […]| Econlib
“Law and economics,” also known as the economic analysis of law, differs from other forms of legal analysis in two main ways. First, the theoretical analysis focuses on efficiency. In simple terms, a legal situation is said to be efficient if a right is given to the party who would be willing to pay the […]| Econlib
Arthur C. Pigou, a British economist, is best known for his work in welfare economics. In his book The Economics of Welfare Pigou developed alfred marshall’s concept of externalities, costs imposed or benefits conferred on others that are not taken into account by the person taking the action. He argued that the existence of […]| Econlib
Origins Before 1890, the only “antitrust” law was the common law. Contracts that allegedly restrained trade (e.g., price-fixing agreements) often were not legally enforceable, but they did not subject the parties to any legal sanctions, either. Nor were monopolies illegal. Economists generally believe that monopolies and other restraints of trade are bad because they usually […]| Econlib
