Information Age

Guru of the Information Economy

Ronald Coase grasped early on how the Internet would produce immense economic benefits.

Sept. 8, 2013 6:22 p.m. ET

Ronald Coase wasn't a household name, but he played a central role in the transition to the information economy. Decades before the Internet, Coase explained how the increasingly free flow of information would reduce the need for government regulations and corporate bureaucracy.

Coase, a University of Chicago law professor who won the 1991 Nobel Prize in Economics, began his research in 1931 as a visiting student from England with a simple question: Why had companies formed as large enterprises? He visited General Motors...

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