Bees, Oranges, and Externalities: The Answer is Transaction Costs

Send us Fan Mail (https://www.buzzsprout.com/2186249/fan_mail/new) Bees and Valencia oranges from my family's farm in rural central Florida provide a snapshot of externalities and transaction costs. A local beekeeper wasn't just a boon for our crops but also an illustration of Arthur Pigou's theories on the divergence between supply price and marginal supply price. 

 Real-world practices, such as apple orchard owners paying for pollination services while beekeepers pay for the privilege of orange blossom honey, reveal how market dynamics naturally balance costs and benefits. 

• M.C. Munger. "The Lighthouse Myth." https://www.aier.org/article/the-lighthouse-myth/ • M.C. Munger. "Orange Blossom Special." https://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2008/Mungerbees.html • J.E. Meade, 1952, "External Economies and Diseconomies in a Competitive Situation." https://www.jstor.org/stable/2227173 • Shawn Regan, "How Capitalism Saved the Bees", PERC. https://www.perc.org/2017/07/20/how-capitalism-saved-the-bees/ • SNS Cheung, "Fable of the Bees." https://www.pauldeng.com/pdf/stevencheung/fableofbees.pdf • Bruce Frohnen and Ted McAllister, Character in the American Experience: An Unruly People.  https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781666914528/Character-in-the-American-Experience-An-Unruly-People

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