The Core, Transaction Costs, and the Coase Theorem

This paper clarifies and synthesizes elements of the two decade old debate concerning the Coase theorem and the empty core. Five lessons can be derived from this debate. First, the Coase theorem may break down when there more than two participants (provided the additional participants bring an additional externality to the table). Second, the problem of the empty core does not disappear in a world of positive transaction costs. Under reasonable assumptions about the transactions technology, transaction costs may well exacerbate the empty-core problem. As a consequence, it is important to differentiate between transaction costs (when the core exists) and costs due to the empty core because each has different implications for rationalizing institutional arrangements. Third, the Coase theorem will not break down when the number of participants increases if the new participants do not bring additional externalities with them. If, however, additional participants bring in additional externalities, then the core may be empty and Pareto efficiency may not emerge from costless negotiations. Fourth, Pareto Optimality can be achieved when the core is empty by judicious use of penalty clauses, binding contracts, and constraints on the bargaining mechanism. Fifth, when a non-excludable public good is involved, a free-rider problem arises as the number of agents increases, and this undermines the Coase theorem; in this case, Coasean efficiency requires the participation of all agents affected by the externality in the writing of binding contracts.     

Coase theorem, complexity and transaction costs

This paper, by introducing complexity considerations, provides a dynamic foundation for the Coase theorem and highlights the role of transaction costs in generating inefficient bargaining/negotiation outcomes. We show, when the players have a preference for less complex strategies, the Coase theorem holds in negotiation models with repeated surplus and endogenous disagreement payoffs if and only if there are no transaction costs. Specifically, complexity considerations select only efficient equilibria in these models without transaction costs while every equilibrium induces perpetual disagreement and inefficiency with transaction costs. We also show the latter is true in the Rubinstein bargaining model with transaction costs.     

Efficient political contributions with conditional Coasian contracts

The externalities associated with political contributions imply agents choose a socially inefficient level. A typical market solution to these externalities would involve Coase bargaining where agents form contracts with payments conditional on the actions of others. These contracts, however, are hard to enforce because political contributions can be unobservable or unmeasurable. In this study, we modify these Coasian contracts, making the payments conditional on the outcome of the political election. We show the agents that form these contracts contribute the socially efficient amount.     

论科斯定理的真理性

科斯定理具有隐含的私有产权制度偏好。在逻辑意义上,对科斯定理中"交易成本"、"可交易权利的初始配置"、"最终配置"作特定的理解,科斯定理在西方主流经济学逻辑、方法论意义上是正确的,但此时科斯定理完全等价于完全竞争理论,没有任何现实意义。在经验意义上,科斯定理是谬误。科斯定理的逻辑推论必然是私有产权企业比公有产权企业更有效率。在经济实践中,存在着三类证据:完全肯定科斯定理、完全否定科斯定理以及在肯定科斯定理的同时包含着否定科斯定理的成分。"超产权论"是对科斯定理的"革命",是对科斯定理的否定。     

An Experimental Study of the Effect of Private Information in the Coase Theorem

We investigate, in an experimental setting, the effect of private information on the Coase theorem's predictions of efficiency and allocative neutrality. For a two-person bargaining game, we find significantly more inefficiency and allocative bias in the case of private information compared with the case of complete information. We also find substantial bargaining breakdown, which is not predicted by the Coase theorem. For the case of private information, we reject the Coase theorem in favor of the alternative of a generalized version of the Myerson—Satterthwaite theorem, which predicts inefficiency, allocative bias in the direction of the disagreement point, and some bargaining breakdown.     

INNOVATION AND GROWTH WITH FINANCIAL,AND OTHER,FRICTIONS

The generation of ideas and their implementation are crucial for economic performance. We study this in a model of endogenous growth, where productivity increases with innovation and where the exchange of ideas (technology transfer) allows those with comparative advantage to implement them. Search, bargaining, and commitment frictions impede the idea market, however, reducing efficiency and growth. We characterize optimal policies involving subsidies to innovative and entrepreneurial activity, given both knowledge and search externalities. The role of liquidity is discussed. We show intermediation helps by financing more transactions with fewer assets and, more subtly, by ameliorating holdup problems. We also discuss some evidence.     

Aggregation of binary evaluations

We study a general aggregation problem in which a society has to determine its position (yes/no) on each of several issues, based on the positions of the members of the society on those issues. There is a prescribed set of feasible evaluations, i.e., permissible combinations of positions on the issues. This framework for the theory of aggregation was introduced by Wilson and further developed by Rubinstein and Fishburn. Among other things, it admits the modeling of preference aggregation (where the issues are pairwise comparisons and feasibility reflects rationality), and of judgment aggregation (where the issues are propositions and feasibility reflects logical consistency). We characterize those sets of feasible evaluations for which the natural analogue of Arrow's impossibility theorem holds true in this framework.     

科斯三定理的新表述与新证明

科斯第二定理指出,在交易费用大于零的现实世界,产权的不同界定会对资源配置效率产生影响。政府(或法院)的基本原则应该是把权利界定给能以较低交易费用解决外部性问题的一方。科斯第三定理的准确含义是,在交易费用大于零的现实世界,制度安排的生产本身是有成本的,净收益最大的制度安排就是最佳的选择。科斯第二、三定理为市场经济中普遍存在的外部性问题提供了新的解决措施和科学的决策原则,间接意味着科斯并非政府干预的完全反对者,科斯定理也不足以成为有些学者把新制度经济学定性为新自由主义的充分理由。     

Segmented Work and Divided Workers: A Review Article

The Coase theorem is often interpreted as demonstrating why private negotiations between polluters and victims can yield efficient levels of pollution without government interference. It is considered by many to provide the theoretical underpinnings for "free-market" solutions to environmental problems. This article explains why misinterpreting Coasian negotiations as a market driven process leads to erroneous conclusions. More importantly, this article demonstrates why negotiations between polluters and victims would fail to yield efficient outcomes even if property rights were well-defined, even if there were only a single victim, even if negotiations entailed no transaction costs, and even if negotiators behaved rationally and reached a successful agreement. Unlike other critiques of the Coase theorem that focus on irrational behavior and transaction costs, our critique identifies perverse incentives that arise even under conditions most favorable to the theorem. By accepting, rather than challenging, the premises of the theorem, our analysis provides an "internal" critique that strengthens well-known "external" criticisms.     

A model of techno-economic evaluation for eco-industrial park project

An eco-industrial park or estate is a community of manufactaring and service businesses located together on a common property. The goat of ElP is to create a win-win harmonious development aspect of ecooomic development and environmental protection. This paper emphasizes that the external .effect of an EIP is its main characteristic of technoeconomic evaluation for eco-industrial park project. From the view of the property, rights, the EIP＇s product is typicalty public-private. The government should take some inca.rares for the quantitative analysis on ecological positive externalities of the enterprises in EIP, and also should adopt Coase＇s Theorem, which supports that the market transaction is the best way to deal with positive externalities （external economics or diseconoraics）, or Pigou＇s Theorem, which holds that the government anti-positive externalities programs are the best way to cope with positive externalities, to internalize the EIP＇s external effects, which is also a fundamental tool to encourage investors to actively invest in EIP projects, Furthermore. this paper thinks that the EIP ＇s income should be equal to the income of staple products of the private property, and that of its by-products of the public property. According to this principle, this paper has put forward three major indicators, net present value （NPV）, internal rate of renan （IRR）, and investment repayment period （IRP）, which are also extensively used indicators in ardinary project techno-economic evaluation model to evaluate EIP technoeconomic effects. Theoretically, the indicatory not only can be used in EIP project evaluation, but also can provide a quantitative measure toot for the government to support EIP＇s construction to the maximum. In the end. a case is analyzed.     

Risky arbitrage,asset prices,and externalities

We introduce a no-risky-arbitrage price condition (NRAP) for asset market models allowing both unbounded short sales and externalities such as trading volume. We then demonstrate that NRAP is sufficient for the existence of competitive equilibrium in the presence of externalities. Moreover, we show that if all risky arbitrages are utility increasing, then NRAP characterizes competitive equilibrium in the presence of externalities. We are indebted to an anonymous referee for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. Page and Wooders are especially grateful to CERMSEM and EUREQua for their support and hospitality which made possible our collaboration.     

A reconsideration of the problem of social cost: Free riders and monopolists

Summary. One version of the Coase Theorem is, If property rights are fully allocated, competition leads to efficient allocations. This version implies that the public goods problem can be solved by allocating property rights fully. We show that this mechanism is not likely to work well in economies with global externalities because the privatized economy is highly susceptible to strategic behavior: The free-rider problem manifests itself as a complementary monopoly problem in an associated private goods economy. Thus, our work relates the validity of the Coase Theorem to the literature on the incentives for strategic behavior in economies with complementarities. Received: 12 May 1999; revised version: 9 July 1999     

Pre-commercial procurement,procurement of innovative solutions and innovation partnerships in the EU: rationale and strategy

We discuss public procurement instruments for acquiring innovation, focusing on the European Pre-commercial Procurement, Procurement of Innovative Solutions and Innovation Partnerships. We analyse, in particular, how firms’ innovation incentives are affected by: (i) economies of scope and externalities between R&D and large-scale production; (ii) the degree of specificity of the innovation; (iii) the presence of Small and Medium Enterprises in the market and the level of market competition; (iv) the risk of market foreclosure and supplier lock-in. Our study contributes to the literature on incentives in demand-side innovation policy by tapping into the contractual design features and by offering relevant implications for academics and policy-makers.     

A Model of Tradeable Capital Tax Permits

Standard models of horizontal capital tax competition predict that, in a Nash equilibrium, states set tax rates inefficiently due to externalities—capital inflow to one state corresponds to capital outflow for another state. Researchers often suggest that the federal government impose Pigouvian taxes to correct for these effects and achieve efficiency. We propose an alternative incentive‐based regulation: tradeable capital tax permits. Under this system, the federal government would require a state to hold a permit if it wanted to reduce its capital income tax rate from some predefined benchmark. These permits would be tradeable across states. We show that, if the federal government sets the correct number of total permits, then social efficiency is achieved. We discuss the advantages of this system relative to the canonical suggestion of Pigouvian taxes.     

Optimal fiscal policy, uncertainty, and growth

This paper analyzes the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy in a stochastic endogenous growth model. Due to externalities in human capital accumulation, the market allocation is inefficient, thereby justifying government intervention. The uncertainty stemming from technological disturbances affects the growth rate, which can be explained by precautionary motives of risk averse agents. Fiscal policy means consist of a consumption tax, investment subsidies, and bonds. We obtain counter-acting growth effects of investment subsidies, which are differentiated with respect to deterministic and stochastic capital income components. The policy implications from the deterministic model are substantially extended in the stochastic context. A general rule for a welfare maximizing policy is derived, which is represented by a continuum of alternative tax-transfer-schemes. We discuss three benchmark cases, which crucially differ with respect to their implications regarding the size of the government expenditure share.     

Insurance,self-protection,and the economics of terrorism

This paper investigates the rationale for public intervention in the terrorism insurance market. It argues that government subsidies for terror insurance have the effect of discouraging self-protection and limiting the negative externalities associated with self-protection. Cautious self-protective behavior by a target can hurt public goods like national prestige if it is seen as “giving in” to the terrorists, and may increase the loss probabilities faced by others by encouraging terrorists to substitute toward more vulnerable targets. We argue that these externalities in protection are essential for normative analysis of government intervention in insurance markets and may also explain why availability problems in this market have engendered much stronger government responses than similar problems in other catastrophe insurance markets.     

Fiscal Federalism and Electoral Accountability

We evaluate how governance uncertainty—exemplified by turnout uncertainty—affects the trade‐off between internalization of externalities and political accountability in the design of the fiscal state. We show that centralization only weakens political accountability in the presence of negative externalities. Unlike positive externalities, negative externalities allow federal politicians to extract higher rents. This yields two new insights. First, decentralization can only Pareto dominate centralization in economies with negative externalities. Second, centralization may not be Pareto efficient in economies with positive externalities despite the fact that policy can be tailored to regional taste differences and centralization internalizes the positive externality.     

Property rights,entrepreneurship and coordination

The notion of plan coordination enjoys a central place in the analysis of institutions and competitive market processes. The conventional wisdom is that institutions and policies vary in the extent to which they promote competition and how quickly and completely they bring individuals’ plans into closer coordination with one another. Kirzner has provided the most fully elaborated statement on the use of coordination as a positive analytical device for explaining market dynamics and as a normative criterion for evaluating economic policies. We identify the core propositions in his analysis that elucidate how economic coordination depends upon that most fundamental of market institutions – the system of private property rights. We also probe into Kirzner's claims about inherent limitations in our ability to compare the coordinative potential of alternative property rights systems. We unpack the consequences of these core propositions using the economic theory of property rights. We also examine Kirzner's assertion that dynamic competition – including Schumpeterian innovation – is necessarily coordinative in its market effects. We find that his argument rests on the implicit assumption that property rights remain constant during the process of market adjustment. We provide a case study of the advent of commercial aviation as a potential counterexample to his claims.