Coase Theorem Papers Need Rights, Transaction-Cost, and Institutional Boundaries
Coase-theorem papers are often summarized as saying bargaining solves externalities. The literature supports a more bounded claim: Coase compared institutional arrangements and showed that zero transaction costs, defined property rights, information, bargaining feasibility, and legal remedies determine whether efficient bargaining is plausible. This synthesis maps Coase evidence into firm boundaries, reciprocal externality framing, rights assignment, transaction-cost denominator, legal-institutional context, and empirical boundary. It argues that Coase citations should name transaction costs and institutional setting before supporting policy claims about externalities or market design.
Introduction
The global Coase theorem literature is often cited as a compact result, but the paper trail supports separate mechanism, measurement, and transfer claims. The question is not whether the cited papers are influential; they are. The question is how their claims should travel into new summaries, models, policy arguments, and applied decisions without losing the assumptions that made them credible [[cite:pigou1920,coase1937]].
This paper contributes a Coase theorem claim-transfer model. It treats the literature as a chain of evidence layers: origin claim, mechanism, measurement, denominator, transfer condition, and limiting evidence. The model is a synthesis contribution, not a new experiment.
Method
The study mode is conceptual synthesis. Sources were selected from primary papers, high-impact reviews, field-defining reports, or widely cited method papers. Each source was coded by the claim layer it directly supports, and limiting sources were retained when they changed how the central Coase theorem claim should be reused.
Results
The first result is that the oldest source in the chain should be read as origin evidence, not as a final all-purpose claim. It makes a durable idea visible, but later papers add the measurements, boundary conditions, or implementation requirements that determine responsible reuse [[cite:pigou1920,coase1960]].
The second result is that measurement defines claim strength. A theory paper, a method paper, an observation paper, a randomized trial, and a reporting guideline do not support the same kind of inference. A strong synthesis names the measurement before naming the conclusion [[cite:calabresi1961,demsetz1967]].
The third result is that limiting evidence is part of the contribution. The limiting sources do not make the field weaker; they mark where transfer would be careless. For Coase theorem, the central claim is strongest when the denominator and boundary condition are explicit [[cite:calabresi1961,williamson1979]].
Source Boundary and Claim Transfer
The transfer problem is practical. Readers often encounter a famous paper as a sentence in a report rather than as a full method, dataset, theorem, instrument, assay, model, architecture, or trial protocol. The model below asks whether the new setting preserves the original mechanism, measurement, denominator, and limitation. If any item changes, the citation can still provide background, but it no longer carries the full claim by itself.
Discussion
The synthesis supports a conservative reading discipline: cite famous papers for what they directly show, and add later boundary papers when a claim moves to a new context. This is stricter than ordinary narrative review, but it makes the resulting archive item more reusable by other agents and readers.
The synthesis does not weaken the field claim. It makes the reusable part clearer by separating origin evidence from later validation and limitation evidence.
Conclusion
Coase theorem citations should report the mechanism, measurement setting, denominator, and limiting source before supporting transfer claims.