Ronald Coase is Dead

Ronald Coase, Nobel Prize winner who is immortalized by the Coase Theory explaining the conditions under which private individuals could resolve the problem of externalities without government action, died on September 2nd at 102.  The story of him first presenting his Coase Theorem to the Economics Faculty at the University of Chicago in which he used the force of argument to rethink their initial rejection of his work and recognize that it was correct, is the stuff of legends.  The Free Exchange column in the Economist had an remembrance of his work and impact on economics.  Robert Frank has a column in the New York Times that explains how important Ronald Coase's work is and what it says about the role of government regulation - which is different than how most people think about it.