The concept of transaction costs — or the total expenses incurred when buying or selling a good or service — is one of the most important insights in economics. Accounting for the fact that these costs exist in every exchange, and that they are sometimes so high they even prevent or impede exchange in the first place, has shaped the field of study in fundamental ways.
Helping to lay the essential groundwork of this idea in his famous 1960 paper, The Problem of Social Cost, was the pioneering economist Ronald Coase. He went on to win the Nobel Prize in economics in 1991 and continued writing and working until his death in 2013 at the age of 102.
A new book and accompanying website and animated videos published and produced by the Fraser Institute details his life and invaluable contributions. The book, The Essential Ronald Coase, is authored by Lynne Kiesling, research professor at the University of Colorado Denver and senior fellow at The Fraser Institute.
She highlights the impact of Coase’s work:
“Coase’s pioneering work brought institutions, property rights, and transaction costs into economic analysis, catalyzing new research in diverse fields in economics, management, law, political science, and other social sciences. The fields of law and economics, property rights economics, transaction cost economics, and institutional and organizational economics built upon Coase’s original contributions to our understanding of the organizational structure of production and the effect of law on economic activity.”
