Caveat Emptor: Abolishing Public Measurements, Standardizing Quantities, and Enhancing Market Transparency in the London Coal Trade c1830
研究了约1830年伦敦煤炭贸易中废除公共计量系统、转向重量计量的过程，分析了商人、官僚与议会间的谈判如何推动市场透明度提升。
This article evaluates efforts to standardize quantities in the London coal trade c1830, and traces the end of the public measurement system first introduced in the fourteenth century. Increasing traffic in coal, reduction of taxes on the commodity, inefficient public meters, etc., contributed to the demise of public measurements. This outcome was the result of extensive negotiations between merchants, the various levels of state bureaucracy, and the parliament. Switching measurement standards was difficult, if not costly, to coordinate. Abolishing public measurements and switching from volume to weight measurements was part of the efforts to strengthen governance along the commodity chain, secure property rights by making quantities predictable and alter a mechanism that powerful merchants considered had become inappropriate.