Zitat des Tages von Ronald Coase:
You get more irrationality within the family and in consumer behavior than you get, say, in the behavior of firms in their purchases.
The tools used by economists to analyze business firms are too abstract and speculative to offer any guidance to entrepreneurs and managers in their constant struggle to bring novel products to consumers at low cost.
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.
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.
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.
I've been wrong so often, I don't find it extraordinary at all.
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 main reason why it is profitable to establish a firm would seem to be that there is a cost of using the price mechanism. The most obvious cost of 'organizing' production through the price mechanism is that of discovering what the relevant prices are.
I'm no enthusiast for the Coase Theorem. I don't like it, but it's widely used.
The law of property determines who owns something, but the market determines how it will be used.
