The Donald Robertson memorial prizewinner 2003 The nature of the neighbourhood
借鉴科斯的企业理论，从交易成本和产权角度解释邻里的形成与演化，提出邻里是契约网络，并给出四条演化规则，对城市经济学和区域科学研究者有参考价值。
This paper considers the order that emerges in cities as individuals exchange and pool rights over resources in pursuit of individual and mutual gain. In his 1937 article The nature of the firm, Ronald Coase explained the existence and size of firms in terms of transaction costs. Neighbourhoods are important units of consumption and production and can, like firms, be explained by transaction costs. A theory of the neighbourhood is developed based on transaction costs, property rights and related ideas from the new institutional economics. A neighbourhood is defined as a nexus of contracts and four rules that govern neighbourhood evolution are specified. Normative aspects of the theory are illustrated by examining the organisational order in neighbourhoods, in particular, the pattern of residual claimants in the contracts that underpin neighbourhoods dynamics.