In his path-breaking paper "The Problem of Social Coast"1. Ronald Coase posited that a change in a liability rule will leave agents' production and consumption decisions both unchanged and economically efficient within the following (implicit) framework: (1) two agents to each bargain, (2) perfect knowledge of one another's (convex) production and profit or utility functions, (3) competitive markets, (4) zero transaction costs, (5) costless court systems, (6) profit-maximizing producers and expected utility maximizing consumers, (7) no wealth effects, and (8) agents will strike mutually advantageous bargains in the absence of transactions costs. While the theorem is "true" given these assumptions, criticism has focused on its applicability in a wider environment in which the assumptions are generally not met.