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Coase did his most relevant work in the 1950s, and it wasn't as if he invented the idea of externalities. It was first given serious academic weight in the 1890

Coase did his most relevant work in the 1950s, and it wasn't as if he invented the idea of externalities. It was first given serious academic weight in the 1890s, and Pigou created the concept of externality correcting taxes in the 1920s. His work was important because it proposed a more market based solution than Pigouvian taxes. I think its safe to say that externalities are not, and were not, an ignored sector given more than a century of serious work, and the fact that it is covered in any intro level Econ course.

cperciva 5mo ago
There's a wide gap between "ignored" and "received the attention they deserved".
- dghlsakjg 5mo ago
  Externalities arguably haven’t received the attention they deserve outside of economics, but I would disagree; what are climate change discussions, if not a discussion about externalities? Hell, just about any global issue is, in part, about externalities. Inside of economics, they have more than 130 years of work, and are taught in any intro class. If your argument is that we are bad at correcting for them, then yes. But that is different than not considering them.
  - atmavatar 5mo ago
    > what are climate change discussions, if not a discussion about externalities? Climate change has been discussed for well over a half century, yet one of the main priorities of the current administration has been to hamstring renewable energy and promote coal and oil. I think it's pretty fair to say the issue is being ignored.
    - techsystems 5mo ago
      Carbon tax, plastic bag tax, etc. are from the learnings from economic externalities that is applied to climate policy. Other non climate externalities based policies are sugar tax, alcohol/cigarette/drug tax, education, healthcare, etc.
    - dgellow 5mo ago
      Ignored by the administration, not by economists. The administration is a political body and proved over and over they don’t care at all about economists opinion (see everything from this admin about tariffs and trade policy)

cperciva 5mo ago

There's a wide gap between "ignored" and "received the attention they deserved".

dghlsakjg 5mo ago
Externalities arguably haven’t received the attention they deserve outside of economics, but I would disagree; what are climate change discussions, if not a discussion about externalities? Hell, just about any global issue is, in part, about externalities. Inside of economics, they have more than 130 years of work, and are taught in any intro class. If your argument is that we are bad at correcting for them, then yes. But that is different than not considering them.
- atmavatar 5mo ago
  > what are climate change discussions, if not a discussion about externalities? Climate change has been discussed for well over a half century, yet one of the main priorities of the current administration has been to hamstring renewable energy and promote coal and oil. I think it's pretty fair to say the issue is being ignored.
  - techsystems 5mo ago
    Carbon tax, plastic bag tax, etc. are from the learnings from economic externalities that is applied to climate policy. Other non climate externalities based policies are sugar tax, alcohol/cigarette/drug tax, education, healthcare, etc.
  - dgellow 5mo ago
    Ignored by the administration, not by economists. The administration is a political body and proved over and over they don’t care at all about economists opinion (see everything from this admin about tariffs and trade policy)