Ron Coase is well known for writing a small number of hugely important articles. The top two are the papers that presented Theory of the Firm and “Coase’s Theorem.” There is a third that gets a bit of discussion, The Lighthouse in Economics. The wiki summary gives you the gist:
This paper challenges the traditional view that lighthouses are examples of public goods by showing that privately owned lighthouses existed in England. Coase aligned lighthouses more with club goods because they are excludable by way of charging port fees. Stopping short of a full analysis, the paper is generally viewed as an excellent insight into the dimensions of public goods and an invitation by Coase for a full economic analysis of the lighthouse.
This is usually seen as a defense of markets. Just because something is a non-excludable good, it doesn’t follow that it can’t possibly…
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