American economist (1930?2019)
Harold Demsetz
(
; May 31, 1930 ? January 4, 2019)
[1]
was an American professor of
economics
at the
University of California at Los Angeles
(UCLA).
Career
[
edit
]
Demsetz grew up on the
West Side
of Chicago, the grandchild of
Jewish
immigrants from central and eastern Europe.
[2]
He studied engineering, forestry, and philosophy at four universities before being awarded a B.A. (1953) in economics from the
University of Illinois
, and an MBA (1954) and a Ph.D. (1959) from
Northwestern University
. While a graduate student, he published an article each in
Econometrica
and the
Journal of Political Economy
.
Demsetz taught at the
University of Michigan
(1958?60), UCLA, 1960?63, and the Graduate School of Business at the
University of Chicago
, 1963?71. In 1971, he returned permanently to UCLA's Economics Department, which he chaired 1978?80. He held the Arthur Andersen UCLA Alumni Chair in Business Economics, 1986?95. He has been affiliated with the
Center for Naval Analyses
and the
Hoover Institution
.
Demsetz was a fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
, a director of the
Mont Pelerin Society
, and a past (1996) president of the Western Economics Association.
Work
[
edit
]
Demsetz belonged to the
Chicago school
of economic theory, and was one of the pioneers of the approach now called
New Institutional Economics
. He is a founder of the field of
managerial economics
. He has expanded the theory of
property rights
now prevalent in
law and economics
. Even though Demsetz never employed
game theory
, he is a major figure in
industrial organization
through his writings on the
theory of the firm
,
antitrust policy
, and business
regulation
. His expository style is devoid of mathematical formalism to an extent unusual for someone who began his career after 1950. His principal influences include
Frank Knight
and a number of colleagues:
Armen Alchian
,
Ronald Coase
,
Aaron Director
, and
George Stigler
.
Demsetz coined the term "
nirvana fallacy
" in 1969.
[3]
[4]
The 1972 Demsetz and
Armen Alchian
article
Production, Information Costs and Economic Organization
was selected as one of the twenty most important articles published in the first century of the
American Economic Review
.
[5]
One of his most significant works over the course of many decades was on externalities, in which he disputed the conclusions of Pigou and of Coase and showed that there is no problem of externalities which invokes a role for the government. Instead, with strategic behaviour we might get a problem of public goods with a potential role for the government. His 2011 paper, "
The Problem of Social Cost: What Problem? A Critique of the Reasoning of A.C. Pigou and R.H. Coase
" provides a detailed analysis of this position.
Major publications
[
edit
]
- 1967, "Toward a Theory of Property Rights,"
American Economic Review
.
- 1968, "Why Regulate Utilities?"
Journal of Law and Economics
.
- 1969, "Information and Efficiency: Another Viewpoint,"
Journal of Law and Economics
.
- 1972, (with
Armen Alchian
), "Production, Information Costs and Economic Organization",
American Economic Review
.
- 1973, "Industry Structure, Market Rivalry and Public Policy,"
Journal of Law and Economics
.
- 1974, "Two systems of belief about monopoly," in H. Goldschmid, et al., eds., Industrial Concentration: The New Learning, Boston: Little Brown, also chapter 7 in, Demsetz, Harold. Efficiency, Competition, and Policy. Cambridge MA: Basil Blackwell, 1989.)
- 1979, "Accounting for Advertising as a Barrier to Entry,"
Journal of Business
.
- 1982,
Economic, Legal, and Political Dimensions of Competition
.
- 1988,
The Organization of Economic Activity
, 2 vols. Blackwell. Reprints most of Demsetz's better known journal articles published as of date.
- 1994, (with
Alexis Jacquemin
).
Anti-trust Economics: New Challenges for Competition Policy
.
- 1995,
The Economics of the Business Firm: Seven Critical Commentaries
.
- 1997, "The Primacy of Economics: An Explanation of the Comparative Success of Economics in the Social Sciences" (Presidential Address to the Western Economics Association),
Economic Inquiry
.
- 2008, "From Economic Man to Economic System: Essays on Human Behavior and the Institutions of Capitalism"
- 2011, "The Problem of Social Cost: What Problem? - A Critique of the Reasoning of A.C. Pigou and R.H. Coase" in
Review of Law and Economics
.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Istituto Giovanni Treccani, Rome (1938).
"Enciclopedia italiana di scienze, lettere ed arti"
.
- ^
Read, C. (2015). "Harold Demsetz".
The Corporate Financiers
. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
- ^
Demsetz, Harold (1969), "Information and Efficiency: Another Viewpoint",
Journal of Law & Economics
,
12
: 1?22,
doi
:
10.1086/466657
,
S2CID
222327886
- ^
"Anarchy Unbound, or: Why Self-Governance Works Better than You Think"
. 2007-08-06.
- ^
Arrow, Kenneth J.; Bernheim, B. Douglas; Feldstein, Martin S.; McFadden, Daniel L.; Poterba, James M.; Solow, Robert M. (2011).
"100 Years of the
American
Economic Review: The Top 20 Articles"
(PDF)
.
American Economic Review
.
101
: 1?8.
doi
:
10.1257/aer.101.1.1
.
hdl
:
1721.1/114169
.
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
International
| |
---|
National
| |
---|
Academics
| |
---|
Other
| |
---|