Coase

[Doug Henwood]

Ellen Frank wrote:

>I never get it when people talk about how important this
>work on transaction costs is, how brilliant and insightful.

And as Coase himself noted, his paper was "much cited and little 
used," at least in 1970 when he said that.

It also begins from premises so ridiculous that only an economist 
could hold them. He quoted Sir Arthur Salter as saying "The normal 
economic system works itself." Why the insight that it doesn't "work 
itself" should be seen as profound is further proof of the banality 
of so much economics.

Doug