August 30, 2024
Jon Hartley proposes a “Chicago Canon,” causing Vlad Tarko to suggest an “Austrian Canon.” More recently, Arnold Kling formulates the “MIT Canon.”
People will quibble over these, but I think it’s a useful exercise for organizing your understanding of the history of economic thought. One could envision “Mainline” and “Virginia Political Economy” (and other) canons too.
In that spirit, I want to propose a “Property Rights Economics” canon. To my mind, the PRE tradition is some mix of UCLA, Washington, with some Virginia sprinkled in. It’s what Nicolai and Kirsten Foss have called the “Mark I Property Rights Economics.”
The Mark I PRE canon might look something like this:
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Mises, Ludwig von. Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis. 1922.
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Knight, Frank H. "Some Fallacies in the Interpretation of Social Cost." The Quarterly Journal of Economics 38, no. 4 (1924): 582-606.
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Alchian, Armen A. "Some Economics of Property Rights." Il Politico (1965): 816-829.
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Coase, Ronald H. "The Federal Communications Commission." The Journal of Law and Economics 2 (1959): 1-40.
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Coase, Ronald H. “The Problem of Social Cost.” The Journal of Law & Economics 3, no. 1 (1960): 1–44.
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Demsetz, Harold. "The Exchange and Enforcement of Property Rights." The Journal of Law and Economics 7 (1964): 11-26.
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Demsetz, Harold. “Toward a Theory of Property Rights.” The American Economic Review 57, no. 2 (1967): 347–59.
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Cheung, Steven NS. "The structure of a Contract and the Theory of a Non-Exclusive Resource." The Journal of Law and Economics 13, no. 1 (1970): 49-70.
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Alchian, Armen A., and Harold Demsetz. "Production, Information Costs, and Economic Organization." The American Economic Review 62, no. 5 (1972): 777-795.
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Alchian, Armen A., and Harold Demsetz. "The Property Right Paradigm." The Journal of Economic History 33, no. 1 (1973): 16-27.
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Barzel, Yoram. "A Theory of Rationing by Waiting." The Journal of Law and Economics 17, no. 1 (1974): 73-95.
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Coase, Ronald H. "The Lighthouse in Economics." The Journal of Law and Economics 17, no. 2 (1974): 357-376.
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Anderson, Terry L., and Peter J. Hill. "The Evolution of Property Rights: A Study of the American West." The Journal of Law and Economics 18, no. 1 (1975): 163-179.
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Jensen, Michael C. and William H. Meckling. “Theory of the Firm: Agency Costs and Ownership Structure.” Journal of Financial Economics 3, no. 4 (1976): 305-360.
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Klein, Benjamin, Robert G. Crawford, and Armen A. Alchian. "Vertical Integration, Appropriable Rents, and the Competitive Contracting Process." The Journal of Law and Economics 21, no. 2 (1978): 297-326.
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Williamson, Oliver E. "Transaction-cost Economics: The Governance of Contractual Relations." The Journal of Law and Economics 22, no. 2 (1979): 233-261.
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Barzel, Yoram. "Measurement Cost and the Organization of Markets." The Journal of Law and Economics 25, no. 1 (1982): 27-48.
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Demsetz, Harold. "Barriers to Entry." American Economic Review 72, no. 1 (1982): 47-57.
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Fama, Eugene F., and Michael C. Jensen. "Separation of Ownership and Control." The Journal of Law and Economics 26, no. 2 (1983): 301-325.
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North, Douglass C. Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance. Cambridge University Press, 1990.
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Allen, Douglas W. "What are Transaction Costs?" Research in Law & Economics 14 (1991): 1.
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North, Douglass C. “Institutions.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives 5, no. 1 (1991): 97–112.
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Barzel, Yoram. The Economic Analysis of Property Rights. Cambridge University Press, 1997.
So, there was at least one good thing about the 1970’s.