TABLE OF CONTENTS This chapter provided a narrative of the development of economic thought on durability. Four periods were proposed to communicate the dynamics and evolution of the history of the durability choice problem in the economic literature: (1) the origins and preanalytic period with Knut Wicksell and Edward Chamberlin as the main protagonists, (2) the flawed analytic period, (3) the Swan-centric period, and (4) the identification of the time inconsistency problem for durable goods monopolists, or the Coase (1972) and post-Coase period. Historians often engage in such periodization exercises, i.e., the division of history into periods. The exercise can be useful in helping conceptualize and communicate certain dynamics or thematic threads, but periods should not be taken too rigidly or literally, as they are rarely linear and often overlap. Nevertheless, the narrative here provided showed a clear pattern of rise then stumbling in economic thought on durability, followed by a more subtle and careful development of an economic theory of durability choice.
Following an exposition of the historical development of economic thought on durability, this chapter discussed the many limitations that still remain unaddressed in this literature. It is hoped that these limitations will be viewed as an invitation for researchers to further explore this area still rich for theoretical and empirical contributions.
The following analogy with biology may be interesting or amusing: evolutionary biology is sometimes described as evolution by jerks, that is, long periods of equilibrium punctuated by moments of acute change. The economic theory of...
