This essay discusses and refutes allegations by A.C. Pigou and R.H. Coase that a competitive, private-ownership economic system that conforms to the neoclassical model fails to allocate resources efficiently. The essay then suggests a source of inefficiency that differs from and is much more limited in application than are those offered by Pigou and Coase; and the suggested source, moreover, is compatible with the neoclassical model.
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Review of Law & Economics
Editor-in-Chief: Parisi, Francesco / Engel, Christoph
Ed. by Cooter, Robert D. / Gómez Pomar, Fernando / Kornhauser, Lewis A. / Parchomovsky, Gideon / Franzoni, Luigi Alberto
CiteScore 2018: 0.32
SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) 2018: 0.274
Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) 2018: 0.493
- Online
- ISSN
- 1555-5879
The Problem of Social Cost: What Problem? A Critique of the Reasoning of A.C. Pigou and R.H. Coase
Harold Demsetz
Published Online: 2011-02-02 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.2202/1555-5879.1502
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Published Online: 2011-02-02
Citation Information: Review of Law & Economics, Volume 7, Issue 1, Pages 1–13, ISSN (Online) 1555-5879, DOI: https://doi.org/10.2202/1555-5879.1502.
©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston.
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