Hostname: page-component-5d84bcc8dc-jn2fx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-09-15T21:07:22.349Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Coasean method: lessons from the farm

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2014

DOUGLAS W. ALLEN
DOUGLAS W. ALLEN*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada
*
*Email: allen@sfu.ca.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Ronald Coase detested ‘blackboard economics’ and as a result was often criticized for being ‘against theory’. Coase has also been criticized for being overly descriptive in his institutional analysis. Here, I claim that Coase was both theoretical and interested in hypothesis testing. In order to do Coasean analysis, however, it is necessary to analyse a subject matter at the deep transaction level, given the definition of transaction costs. The rich level of detail required may give the impression of an absence of theory or testing. Here, I provide a number of real farm examples and contrast them with blackboard farm economics to make this point.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Institutional Economics , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 93 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © Millennium Economics Ltd 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Allen, D. W. (1985), ‘Evidence of ‘Tax’ Farming: Test Using Differential Land Assessments For BC Farms’, Canadian Public Policy—Analyse de Politiques, 11 (4): 659–664.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, D. W. (1991), ‘What Are Transaction Costs?’, Research in Law and Economics, 14: 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, D. W. (1993), ‘Pot-Bellies and Cattle Breeds as ReVealing Signals’, Economic Inquiry, 31 (3): 481–487.Google Scholar
Allen, D. W. (1998), ‘Property Rights, Transaction Costs, and Coase: One More Time’, in Medema, S. (ed.), Coasean Economics: Law and Economics and the New Institutional Economics, Boston: Kluewer Academic Publishers, pp. 105–118.Google Scholar
Allen, D. W. (2000), ‘Transaction Costs’, in Bouckaert, B. and De Geest, G. (eds.), Encyclopedia of Law and Economics (Volume One: The History and Methodology of Law and Economics), Chelthenham: Edward Elgar Press, pp. 893–926.Google Scholar
Allen, D. W. and Borchers, A. (2014), ‘The Effect of Conservation Practices on Contract Choice’, Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University, manuscript.Google Scholar
Allen, D. W. and Lueck, D. (2002), The Nature of the Farm: Contracts, Risk, and Organization in Agriculture, Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Allen, F. (1985), ‘On the Fixed Nature of Sharecropping Contracts’, The Economic Journal 95 (377): 30–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barzel, Y. (1985), ‘Transaction Costs: Are They Just Costs?’, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 141 (March): 4–16.Google Scholar
Bellemare, M. (2009), ‘Sharecropping, Insecure Land Rights and Land Titling Policies: A Case Study of Lac Alaotra, Madagascar’, Development Policy Review, 27 (1): 87–106.Google Scholar
Boswell, J. (1986), The Life of Samuel Johnson, New York: Penguin Classics.Google Scholar
Carmona, J. and Simpson, J. (1999), ‘Rabassa Morta’ in Catalan Viticulture: The Rise and Decline of a Long-Term Sharecropping Contract, 1670s–1920s’, Journal of Economic History 59 (2): 290–315.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carmona, J. and Simpson, J. (2012), ‘Explaining Contract Choice: Vertical Coor-dination, Sharecropping, and Wine in Europe, 1850–1950’, Economic History Review, 65 (3): 887–909.Google Scholar
Cheung, S. N. S. (1969), The Theory of Share Tenancy, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Cheung, S. N. S. (1974), ‘A Theory of Price Control’, Journal of Law and Economics 17 (1): 53–71.Google Scholar
Coase, R. H. (1935), ‘The Problem of Duopoly Reconsidered’, Review of Economic Studies, 2 (2): 137–143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coase, R. H. (1937), ‘Some Notes on Monopoly Price’, Review of Economic Studies, 5 (1): 17–31.Google Scholar
Coase, R. H. (1946a), ‘Monopoly Pricing with Interrelated Costs and Demands’, Economica, 13 (52): 278–284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coase, R. H. (1946b), ‘The Marginal Cost Controversy’, Economica 13 (51): 169–182.Google Scholar
Coase, R. H. (1970), ‘The Theory of Public Utility Pricing and its Application’ Bell Journal of Economics, 1 (1): 113–128.Google Scholar
Coase, R. H. (1972), ‘Durability and Monopoly’, Journal of Law and Economics, 15 (1): 143–149.Google Scholar
Coase, R. H. (1992), ‘The Institutional Structure of Production’, American Economic Review, 82 (4): 713–719.Google Scholar
Coase, R. H. (1993), ‘Coase on Posner on Coase’, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 149 (1): 96–98.Google Scholar
Coase, R. H. (1988), The Firm, The Market, And The Law, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Colin, J. P. (2012), ‘Sharecropping in Non-traditional Agro-export Production: The Abougnon Contract for Pineapple Cultivation in Cote d’Ivoire’, European Journal of Development Research, 24 (4): 627–643.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Courlander, H. (1993), From Sea to Shining Sea: A Treasury of American Folklore and Folk Songs, New York: Scholastic Inc.Google Scholar
Deininger, K., Jin, S., and Yadav, V. (2013), ‘Does Sharecropping Affect Long-Term Investment? Evidence from West Bengal's Tenancy Reforms’, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 95 (3): 772–790.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dubois, P. (2002), ‘Moral Hazard, Land Fertility and Sharecropping in a Rural Area of the Philippines’, Journal of Development Economics, 68 (1): 35–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foss, N. (1994), ‘The Two Coasean Traditions’, Review of Political Economy, 6 (1): 37–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrett, M. Jr. and Xu, Z. (2003), ‘The Efficiency of Sharecropping: Evidence from the Postbellum South’, Southern Economic Journal, 69 (3): 578–595.Google Scholar
Kitch, E. (1983), ‘The Fire of Truth: A Remembrance of Law and Economics at Chicago, 1932–1970’, Journal of Law & Economics, 26 (1): 163–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luporini, A. and Bruno, P. (1996), ‘Multi-Task Sharecropping Contracts: The Italian Mezzadria’, Economica, 63 (251): 445–457.Google Scholar
Mäki, U. (1998a), ‘Is Coase a realist?’, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 28 (1): 5–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mäki, U. (1998b), ‘Against Posner Against Coase Against Theory’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 22 (5): 587–595.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCloskey, D. (1998), ‘The Good Old Coase Theorem and the Good Old Chicago School: A Comment on Zerbe and Medema’, in Medema, S. (ed.), Coasean Economics: Law and Economics and the New Institutional Economics, Boston: Kluewer Academic Publishers.Google Scholar
Medema, S. (1994), ‘Ronald Coase's Contributions and Major Themes’, History of Economic Ideas, 2 (3): 15–60.Google Scholar
Medema, S. (1998), ‘Coase on Economics and Economic Methods’, History of Economics Review, 24 (2): 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newberry, D. and Stiglitz, J. (1979), ‘Sharecropping, Risk Sharing, and the Importance of Imperfect Information’, in Roumasset, J., Boussard, J.-M., and Singh, I. (eds.), Risk, Uncertainty and Agricultural Development, Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Pi, J. (2013), ‘A New Solution to the Puzzle of Fifty-Fifty Split in Sharecropping’, Ekonomska Istrazivanja/Economic Research, 26 (2): 141–152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Posner, R. (1987), ‘The Law and Economics Movement’, American Economic Review, 77 (2): 1–13.Google Scholar
Posner, R. (1993a), ‘The New Institutional Economics Meets Law and Economics’, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 149 (1): 73–87.Google Scholar
Posner, R. (1993b), ‘Ronald Coase and Methodology’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 7 (4): 195–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reiersen, J. (2001), ‘Bargaining and Efficiency in Sharecropping’, Journal of Agricultural Economics, 52 (2): 1–15.Google Scholar
Wang, N. (2003), ‘Coase on the Nature of Economics’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 27 (6): 807–829.Google Scholar
Watson, A. (2006), Marginal Man: The Dark Vision of Harold Innis, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Zerbe, R. and Medema, S. (1998), ‘Ronald Coase, the British Tradition, and the Future of Economic Method’, in Medema, S. (ed.), Coasean Economics: Law and Economics and the New Institutional Economics, Boston: Kluewer Academic Publishers.Google Scholar