Have Coase - Will Travel: New Ways to Teach Coase Using Old Media

Abstract

Bitter Wine was the 23rd episode of the premiere season of the Emmy-nominated Western, Have Gun - Will Travel. Gun-for-hire Paladin settles an externality issue between a small scale vintner and neighboring oilman a la Coase, but two years before Coase's seminal paper. This 1958 episode acutely portrays the Coasian solution often taught in undergraduate courses. Incorporating this episode into the undergraduate curriculum can serve as a stepping stone for discussing the implications of transaction costs and the Coase Theorem.

Keywords: Coase Theorem, Media, Pedagogy, Externality, Ronald Coase

JEL Classification: A21, A22