The Ideas of Ronald H. Coase: Market Failure and Planning by Contract for Sustainable Development

This book is the first work dedicated to the key ideas of Nobel Laureate Ronald Coase on pollution and public goods with sustainable development in mind from the perspective of an economist-town planner. The seminal contributions of Ronald Coase, foretold in the form of the Coase Theorem by another Nobel laureate, George Stigler, have been much analyzed and often misinterpreted by friends and foes alike. In this book, Lawrence Lai attempts to revisit Coase's seminal works and bring to the fore their importance in economic and urban planning policy analysis. Coase's comparative institutional approach offers an important vehicle for the analysis of pressing social issues such as sustainable development, and all those interested in the creation of new platforms for performing policy analysis will welcome this important work.

Laurence W.C Lai is Professor of Planning, Law and Economics in the Department of Real Estate and Construction at the University of Hong Kong.

Part 1: Intellectual and Policy Context 1. Coase: A Friend or an Enemy of Planning? 2. Coase and Coasian Research on Zoning Part 2: Coase and Market Failure 3. ‘The Problem of Social Cost’, the ‘Coase Theorem’ and Externalities 4. ‘The Lighthouse in Economics’ and Public Goods 5. Coase Theorem and Sustainable Development Part 3: Coase Theorem Applied and Planning by Contract 6. The Application of the Coase Theorem to Planning Research 7. Planning by Contract: a Coasian Model for Sustainable Development Part 4: Concluding Thoughts 8. Conclusion: A Coasian Approach to Planning and Sustainable Development by Communicative Planning