This paper builds on the Ostroms' oeuvre to suggest that the binary Samuelsonian taxonomy
of goods–or the 'sterile dichotomy', as Elinor Ostrom calls it–cannot serve as a reliable guide …

What role does government play in the provision of public goods? Economists have used
the lighthouse as an empirical example to illustrate the extent to which the private provision …

What is Coase's understanding of transaction costs in economic theory and history? Our
argument in this paper is twofold, one theoretical and the other empirical. First, Coase …

Was the lighthouse ever a public good? The lighthouse is presented as the quintessential
public good as it was inherently non-excludable and non-rivalrous. Since the work of Ronald …

Coase's publication of “The Lighthouse in Economics”(1974) sparked a polarizing debate
over his claim that government intervention is not necessary for the existence of a private …

Can the market provide law enforcement? This paper addresses this question by analyzing
an historical case study: the system of private prosecutions that prevailed in England prior to …

This article deals with willingness to pay (WTP) for nature as a public good. The study
addresses the relationships between motivation for nature-based experiences …

This paper uses the history of lighthouses in Sweden to discuss the relative roles of public
and private productions of public goods in a developing economy. In Sweden, like in …

We investigate how lighthouses were provided in premodern Japan, with a specific focus on
the role of the private sector. Using national survey data on lighthouses collected by the …

A comparison of the French and English lighthouse systems reveals the benefits of state
intervention in technological development. The French system, funded by the state …