Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host, Russ Roberts,

of Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Our website is econtalk.org where you can

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Today's February 3rd, 2014, and my guest is Robert Frank of Cornell University. He's the author

of numerous books, including The Darwin Economy. Bob, welcome back to Econ Talk.

Yeah, nice to be back, Russ. Today we're going to talk about Ronald Coast, drawing on your discussion

in The Darwin Economy of Coast. He passed away last year at the age of 102. He was a guest on

Econ Talk in 2012, and last year, Don Boudreau appeared here to discuss Coast's work, and I thought

it'd be interesting to do a similar conversation with you, and you have a very different philosophical

perspective compared to Don or mine. We're going to focus on the insights from Coast's work on

externalities, his 1959 Peace Federal Communications Commission and the Journal of Law and Economics,

and his 1960 peace in that same journal, the problem of social cost. Bob, you point out that before

Coast, and I just want to say listeners, you may be wondering why we're doing another podcast on

the same topic besides the fact that Bob has a very different perspective philosophically than my

own. The other reason is that it's an incredibly deep and rich concept, the ideas that Coast

put forward in these two pieces, and to quote, Bob, you say, despite the incredible volume of

attention is received, scholars having yet grasped its full significance, and I would include myself

in that group, I don't know about yourself, but I thought it's very worthwhile to come at another

time because... Yeah, there's a lot there, and none of us has really plumbed the full depth of it,

but yeah, it's amazing. I think some of the interpretations that persist of his work out there

...