Open AccessClubs, Coase, and the Role of Government
Author(s) -
James Roumasset
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
thephilippine review of economics/the philippine review of economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2984-8156
pISSN - 1655-1516
DOI - 10.37907/1erp1202j
Subject(s) - coase theorem , spillover effect , club , economics , private good , public good , transaction cost , government (linguistics) , database transaction , neoclassical economics , foundation (evidence) , microeconomics , public economics , political science , law , computer science , medicine , linguistics , philosophy , programming language , anatomy
As Ronald Coase and others have shown, deducing the appropriate role of the government in the economy requires a comparative institutions approach. Trying to generalize from oversimplified specifications regarding transaction costs, according to whether exclusion is possible or not, is a futile exercise. An alternative to the Ostrom matrix is to distinguish private, club, and collective consumption goods according to their technical characteristics, specifically their degree of congestabiilty. The other box of the Ostrom matrix, “common pool” resources, can also be usefully analyzed from a club perspective. Spillover goods are spatial clubs. Lastly, a version of the Coase theorem is offered, which provides the foundation of comparative institutional analysis.