Archive for Richard B. Coffman

Henry Ford, Upton Sinclair, and Limits on Consumer Choice

Richard Coffman and Ashley Lyman are associate professors of economics at the University of Idaho. Early in the twentieth century two prominent Americans, one a capitalist, the other a socialist, enunciated surprisingly similar views on the relationship between product differentiation and consumer welfare. The capitalist, Henry Ford, had revolutionized the young automobile industry, using mass-production [...]

1Feb2003 | | 1 comment | Continued

The Mushroom Wars

Drive-by shootings, an abandoned car riddled with bullet holes, a man gunned down before he can pull his .45 caliber pistol. No, it is not gang warfare in an American inner city. These are the mushroom wars in the once peaceful forests of the Northwest. Not so long ago mushroom picking was a somewhat quaint [...]

1Jun1995 | | 0 comments | Continued

Mud Farming and Political Extortion

Professor Coffman teaches in the Department of Economics, University of ldaho. William Faulkner’s comic novel, The Reivers, contains an amusing episode that raises interesting questions about entrepreneurs and exploitation. The story is set in the rural South in the early days of the century, when roads were primitive dirt tracks and automobiles still a novelty. [...]

1Jul1992 | | 0 comments | Continued

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