In california it's the driver's responsibility not to hit pedestrians. Pedestrians in california are extremely aggressive. They're much more likely to cross the street carelessly, because theyare aware of the culture there. You come back to the east coast, and it's walker beware, and drivers are less careful. Our moral assessments are surprisingly determined by these economic factors. We we regard the person. If you hit me in the face unprovokedly, you punch me in theFace,. It's true, in a very technical sense, that we both caused it. My face, as if my face weren't here. Therefore the blame does the moral blame f
Don Boudreaux of George Mason University and Cafe Hayek talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the intellectual legacy of Ronald Coase. The conversation centers on Coase's four most important academic articles. Most of the discussion is on two of those articles, "The Nature of the Firm," which continues to influence how economists think of firms and transaction costs, and "The Problem of Social Cost," Coase's pathbreaking work on externalities.