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In 1991 Coase was awarded the Nobel prize for economics, largely on the strength of these two papers.
1991年，主要是因為這兩篇論文的力量，科斯榮獲了諾貝爾經濟學獎。
But as late as 1972, he lamented that “The nature of the firm” had been “much cited and little used”.
但是，早在1972年，他就曾經抱怨說，《公司的性質》“被引用了很多次，卻很少被用到”。
In a strange way, Coase himself was partly to blame.
說來奇怪，這部分要怪科斯本人。
The idea of transaction costs was such a good catch-all explanation for tricky subjects that it was used to close down further inquiry.
交易成本的思想是一種如此優秀的對棘手課題的全方位的解釋，以至于一度被用來封殺進一步的探討。
In fact, Coase's paper raised as many difficult questions as it answered.
實際上，科斯的論文提出了與其回答了一樣多的難題。
If firms exist to reduce transaction costs, why have market transactions at all?
如果公司是為降低交易成本存在，為什么還會有市場交易呢？
Why not further extend the firm's boundaries?
為什么不進一步擴展公司的邊界呢？
In short, what decides how the economy as a whole is organised?
簡言之，決定經濟體是怎樣作為一個整體被組織起來的是什么？
Almost as soon as Coase had wished for it, a body of more rigorous research on such questions began to flourish.
幾乎就在科斯希望對這類問題的研究開花結果的同時，一批嚴禁的研究結出了碩果。
Central to it was the idea that it is difficult to specify all that is required of a business relationship, so some contracts are necessarily “incomplete”.
其核心觀點是，列出為一種商業關系所需要的一切是困難的，因而有些合約必然是“不完整的”。
Important figures in this field include Oliver Williamson, winner of the Nobel prize in economics in 2009, and Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrom, who shared the prize in 2016.
這一領域的重要人物包括2009年諾貝爾經濟學獎得主奧利弗·威廉姆森(Oliver Williamson) 以及在2006年分享了這一獎項的奧利弗·哈特(Oliver Hart) 和本格特·霍姆斯特羅姆(Bengt Holmstrom)。
These and other Coase apostles drew on the work of legal theorists in distinguishing between spot transactions and business relations that require longer-term or flexible contracts.
這些以及另外一些科斯的信徒，在區分現貨交易和需要長期或靈活合約的商業關系時，借鑒了法理學家的研究。
譯文來源考研英語時事閱讀
