On Wed, 31 May 2000, Steve wrote:
>
> Actually I think you missed the point of Coase and his articles. The
> point is that given property rights are completely specified and
> transactions costs are small (your forgot that last requirement for the
> Coase Theorem) then it is irrelevant who we make responsible because the
> actors involved will negotiated (transact) to arrive at the optimal
> outcome. Hence the notion of finding out how is responsible is no longer
> an issue in this world...at least from the perspective of attaining
> optimality.
>
Read again what I wrote:
"Though I don't really want to argue
the Coasian point -- that if we just assigned property rights better, we'd
be fine -- nor do I want to argue the utilitarian point -- that if we can
somehow value these envioronmental "goods" at their real, socially
determined cost, things'd be better..."
Your stated reasons above are a very good reason NOT to argue the Coasian
point, as I have explained I don't want to do.
Ben
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