36 Quotes by Ronald Coase

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.

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.

People have used my views for purposes which are very different from mine.

I tend to regard the Coase theorem as a stepping stone on the way to an analysis of an economy with positive transaction costs.

The pollution problem is always seen as someone who was doing something bad that has to be stopped. To me, pollution is doing something bad and good. People don't pollute because they like polluting. They do it because it's a cheaper way of producing something else.

You get more irrationality within the family and in consumer behavior than you get, say, in the behavior of firms in their purchases.

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.

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.

I've been wrong so often, I don't find it extraordinary at all.