---
id: "entity-ronald-coase"
type: "entity"
entityType: "person"
canonicalName: "Ronald Coase"
aliases: []
source_timestamps: ["§ The Human Layer"]
tags: ["economist", "theorist"]
related: ["concept-transaction-costs-hierarchy"]
canonical_url: "https://www.lse.ac.uk/lse-history/people/ronald-coase"
sources: ["agentic"]
isSpeakerEntity: true
---
## Segment 6 — agentic

## Article 17 — a017

# Ronald Coase

**Profile.** Economist known for 'The Nature of the Firm' and 'The Problem of Social Cost'; pioneered transaction-cost theory explaining why firms and hierarchies exist. Canonical reference: https://www.lse.ac.uk/lse-history/people/ronald-coase

**Role in this source.** A cited theorist supplying the second pillar of the hierarchy argument (not an author or participant).

**Attributed contribution.** [[concept-transaction-costs-hierarchy|Transaction costs as the economic rationale for hierarchy]], feeding [[claim-agents-collapse-hierarchy]].