Richard Posner's “What Do Judges and Justices Maximize?” (1993a) is not, as usually believed, the first analysis of judges' behaviors made by using the assumption that judges are rational and maximize a utility function. It arrived at the end of a rather long process. This paper recounts the...

This article proposes to reassess Hayek's theory of cultural evolution in the light of Darwin's Descent of Man. It is shown that Hayek and Darwin refers to the same theory of human nature which is borrowed from the founding fathers of political economy, Hume and Smith. Their respective...

Even in a world with zero transaction costs, status seeking can prevent efficient Coasean bargaining. Using simple illustrations and various examples, we show that ignoring this impediment can explain the failure of some negotiations where an efficient bargaining seems a priori reachable and...

The Coase theorem is associated with Stigler because Stigler coined the term. The object of this paper is to show that Stigler's Coase theorem is Stiglerian for deeper – namely, methodological – reasons. We argue that, convinced as he was by the importance of Coase's message, Stigler also...

The “Coase theorem” is made of the efficiency and the neutrality theses. Using cooperative game theory, we show that these two theses are not compatible: there exist only two types of rights assignments that guarantee a nonempty core. Thus, the efficiency thesis holds – there exist (two...

In this paper, we analyze the role of ethics and self-interest in Buchanan's explanation for pro-social behaviors. Our main argument is that, to Buchanan, ethics matters and is even necessary to explain pro-social behaviors — narrowly self-interested individuals do not behave pro-socially. We...

We present a short history of the Virginia School of Political Economy in its institutional settings of University of Virginia (UVA), Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, or Virginia Tech (VPI), and George Mason University (GMU). We discuss the original research and educational...

Coase always expressed dissatisfaction with neo-classical economics and advocated for a new approach. Rather than using toy mathematical models built from unrealistic, idealized assumptions, Coase preferred to study real-world contexts, including actual legal cases. He demonstrated the utility...

The purpose of this note is to discuss libertarian paternalism from the perspective of the concept of “freedom of choice”. For libertarian paternalists, freedom remains defined as it is defined by neo-classical economists and “consent” to the conditions of choice is never envisaged as an...

Born on December 29 1910 at Willesden (in a suburb northwest of London, UK), Ronald Harry Coase died on September 2, 2013 in Chicago (USA). He had lived a long 102 years, of which almost 50 spent in the USA, where he had migrated in the early 1950s and of which 80 were devoted to the...