[go: up one dir, main page]

IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/vic/vicddp/2005.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Coase and the Scottish Political Economy Tradition

Author

Abstract
Coase’s work took a different approach to that of standard economics and he made a series of reflections over the years setting out his methodological views. He first employed this approach in his path-breaking paper on ‘The Nature of the Firm’, which was drafted while in his first academic post, at the Dundee School of Economics and Commerce. The distinctive Scottish political economy approach still dominated economics in Scotland at the time, although the Dundee School stood apart from it. The purpose of this paper is to consider how far Coase was influenced by being in Dundee, and in particular by the Scottish political economy tradition. We find little evidence of influence from the Scottish tradition while Coase was at Dundee. Nevertheless we identify many features of Coase’s methodology which accord with the Scottish tradition. In particular we draw out the similarities with Adam Smith’s approach, which Coase had encountered before coming to Dundee. We conclude that there was a missed connection with the Scottish tradition as it had continued in Scotland into the twentieth century.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexander Dow & Sheila Dow, 2021. "Coase and the Scottish Political Economy Tradition," Department Discussion Papers 2005, Department of Economics, University of Victoria.
  • Handle: RePEc:vic:vicddp:2005
    Note: ISSN 1914-2838 JEL Classifications: B12, B31, B41, K00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.uvic.ca/socialsciences/economics/_assets/docs/discussion/ddp2005.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ronald Coase, 2006. "Marshall on method," Chapters, in: Tiziano Raffaelli & Giacomo Becattini & Marco Dardi (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Alfred Marshall, chapter 21, pages 139-146, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Rutherford,Malcolm, 1996. "Institutions in Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521574471.
    3. Dow Sheila C., 2009. "David Hume and Modern Economics," Capitalism and Society, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-31, June.
    4. R. H. Coase, 1935. "The Problem of Duopoly Reconsidered," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 2(2), pages 137-143.
    5. A. L. Macfie, 1955. "The Scottish Tradition In Economic Thought," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 2(1), pages 81-103, February.
    6. Ning Wang, 2003. "Coase on the nature of economics," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 27(6), pages 807-829, November.
    7. Alexander Dow & Sheila Dow & Alan Hutton, 2000. "Applied Economics in a Political Economy Tradition: The Case of Scotland from the 1890s to the 1950s," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 32(5), pages 177-198, Supplemen.
    8. Steven Medema, 2011. "A case of mistaken identity: George Stigler, “The Problem of Social Cost,” and the Coase theorem," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 11-38, February.
    9. Skinner, Andrew S, 1972. "Adam Smith: Philosophy and Science," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 29(3), pages 307-319, November.
    10. Peter J. Boettke & Rosolino A. Candela, 2020. "The Austrian School of Economics: A view from London," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 33(1), pages 69-85, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Steven G Medema, 0. "Embracing at arm’s length: Ronald Coase’s uneasy relationship with the Chicago school," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 72(4), pages 1072-1090.
    2. Jean-Baptiste Fleury & Alain Marciano, 2022. "Methodological Individualism and the Foundations of the "Law and Economics" movement," Post-Print hal-03820441, HAL.
    3. Wang Ning, 2017. "The Legacy of Ronald Coase," Man and the Economy, De Gruyter, vol. 4(2), pages 1-4, December.
    4. Elodie Bertrand, 2015. "From the Firm to Economic Policy: The Problem of Coase's Cost," Post-Print hal-03512866, HAL.
    5. Flavio Comim, 2002. "The Scottish Tradition in Economics and the Role of Common Sense in Adam Smith's Thought," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(1), pages 91-114.
    6. Luis Alfonso Dau & Aya S. Chacar & Marjorie A. Lyles & Jiatao Li, 2022. "Informal institutions and international business: Toward an integrative research agenda," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 53(6), pages 985-1010, August.
    7. Gordon Burt, 1997. "Cultural Convergence in Historical Cultural Space-Time," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 21(4), pages 291-305, December.
    8. Mauricio G. Villena & Marcelo J. Villena, 2004. "Evolutionary Game Theory and Thorstein Veblen’s Evolutionary Economics: Is EGT Veblenian?," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(3), pages 585-610, September.
    9. Kuehn, Daniel, 2021. "James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, and the “Radically Irresponsible” One Person, One Vote Decisions," OSF Preprints zetq4, Center for Open Science.
    10. Giulio Palermo, 2000. "Economic Power and the Firm in New Institutional Economics: Two Conflicting Problems," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(3), pages 573-601, September.
    11. Estrada, Fernando & Diaz, Natalia, 2011. "The transaction costs in biotechnology," MPRA Paper 35539, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Peter Boettke & Christopher Coyne & Peter Leeson & Frederic Sautet, 2005. "The New Comparative Political Economy," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 18(3), pages 281-304, December.
    13. Elias Khalil, 1999. "Institutions, Naturalism and Evolution," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(1), pages 61-81.
    14. Robert Ekelund & Robert Tollison, 1997. "On neoinstitutional theory and preclassical economies: mercantilism revisited," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(3), pages 375-399.
    15. Estrada, Fernando & Diaz, Natalia, 2011. "Costos de transacción en biotecnología [Transaction costs in biotechnology]," MPRA Paper 35532, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Roel Plant & Spike Boydell & Jason Prior & Joanne Chong & Aleta Lederwasch, 2017. "From liability to opportunity: An institutional approach towards value-based land remediation," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 35(2), pages 197-220, March.
    17. Alessi Louis De, 1998. "Reflections on Coase, Cost, and Efficiency," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 5-26, March.
    18. John Henneberry & Claire Roberts, 2008. "Calculated Inequality? Portfolio Benchmarking and Regional Office Property Investment in the UK," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 45(5-6), pages 1217-1241, May.
    19. Wolozin, Harold, 2002. "The individual in economic analysis: toward psychology of economic behavior," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 45-57.
    20. Geoffrey M. Hodgson, 2000. "La ubicuidad de los hábitos y las reglas," Revista de Economía Institucional, Universidad Externado de Colombia - Facultad de Economía, vol. 2(3), pages 11-43, July-dece.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Ronald Coase; Scottish political economy; economic methodology; law and economics;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:vic:vicddp:2005. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kali Moon (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/devicca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.