公损之谜
The Myth of Social Cost

PREFACE（Arthur Seldon）

THE AUTHOR

PROLOGUE: The "Problem" of Social Cost（Charles K. Rowley）

I.INTRODUCTION 
Pigou’s externality tax: the example of chimney smoke

II.HOW TRANSACTION COSTS ARISE
1.Inadequate definition of property rights
2.Uncertain effect of externality
3.Bargaining costs
4.Failure of legal and political institutions

III.INSTRUMENTS OF GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION  
Fundamental issues

The Myth of Social Cost（Steven N. S. Cheung）

I.INTRODUCTION

II.THE BASIC CONCEPTS IN SOCIAL COST
Robinson Crusoe always efficient
Pigou’s private and social costs
Pigou’s central thesis: the polluting factory

III.A TALE OF FOUR ECONOMISTS
1.Pigou’s input tax
2.Viner’s output tax
3.Coase’s transaction
4.Cheung’s aggregate balance
Uncontracted effects and unjustified government action: the case of piano player
Airports: commercial benefits as well as noise nuisances
Should monopoly be excluded from social cost analysis?

IV.THE FALLACY IN SPECIFYING CONSTRAINTS
The unreality of social cost analysis: Pigou’s two roads
Coase’s reciprocity and compensation (transaction) thesis
Complications:
1.Uncertain transaction costs
2.High transaction costs
3.Absence of diminishing returns
4.Unlimited property rights/prohibitive transaction costs

V.THE CONSTRAINTS IN SOCIAL-COST ANALYSIS
Degrees of property rights
Defining the scope of transaction costs
Observing property rights via a study of constraints

VI.FALLACIES IN THE REPORTING OF OBSERVATIONS
Divergences between private and social costs: two empirical investigations
1.Effects of land tenure on agricultural efficiency
Requirements in testing Pigou’s claim
Farmers refute Pigou
2.The case of the apples and the bees
Beekeepers refute Meade
Costs of information and government action
Economists’ imagination and the real world
Note to Section VI: An Empirical Study of Beehive Rentals

VII. CONCLUSION

EPILOGUE: Externalities, Property Rights and Public Policy: Private Property Rights or the
Spoliation of Nature（John Burton）

I.THE PIGOVIAN FORMULA
Aurther Pigou and Tom Cobbleigh

II.THE FLAWS IN THE PIGOVIAN ANALYSIS
Enter R. H. Coase and the ‘Chivirla’ School
1.The fundaments: attenuation of property rights and transaction costs in the generation of external effects
2.Externalities are reciprocal
3.Jointly-supplied external benefits and costs
4.The administrative costs of government correction of ‘market failure’
5.Externalities arising from government ‘correction’ of externalities
6.The motives of government: economic eunuchs?
7.The motives of intervention agencies

III.THE ‘PROBLEM OF THE COMMONS’: A PRIVATE PROPERTY SOLUTION?
The private property solution: the Sahelian tragedy
The lesson of Libya
The limits to a private property solution

IV. CONCLUSIONS FOR PUBLIC POLICY

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

FURTHER READING