Table of Contents

Preface 1: The Institutional Structure of Production 2: How Should Economists Choose? 3: Economics and Contiguous Disciplines 4: Economists and Public Policy 5: The Market for Goods and the Market for Ideas 6: The Wealth of Nations 7: Adam Smith's View of Man 8: Alfred Marshall's Mother and Father 9: Alfred Marshall's Family and Ancestry 10: The Appointment of Pigou as Marshall's Successor 11: Marshall on Method 12: Arnold Plant 13: Duncan Black 14: George J. Stigler 15: Economics at LSE in the 1930s: A Personal View Index

About the Author

Ronald H. Coase (1910 - 2013) was the Clifton R. Musser Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Chicago Law School. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1991. In 2003, Coase was the winner of The Economist Innovation Award in the category of "No Boundaries."

Reviews

This is a series of 15 essays written by the 1991 Nobel laureate in economics. Unlike most such collections, the essays are not primarily about Coase's work. The first half of the book contains essays on methodology: what economists do and how they do it. Coase's explanations are thought-provoking. As Coase demonstrates, economics in its theoretical and empirical work is more normative than most economists would prefer to believe. Simple principles are often ignored, replaced by complex ones beyond the ken of economics. The remaining essays are biographical sketches that focus primarily on famous English economists such as Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall. These essays provide insight into the roots of modern economics. Recommended for large university libraries as an accessible collection by a renowned economist.-- Richard C. Schiming, Mankato State Univ., Minn.