The Nobel laureate University of Chicago economist Ronald Coase has reportedly died. The Taking Hayek Seriously Twitter feed has an excellent collection of links, including to this EconTalk interview with Russ Roberts and this brief biography at the online Library of Economics and Liberty. From the latter link:
Coase also upset the apple cart in the realm of public goods. Economists often give the lighthouse as an example of a public good that only government can provide. They choose this example not based on any information they have about lighthouses, but rather on their a priori view that lighthouses could not be privately owned and operated at a profit. Coase showed, with a detailed look at history, that lighthouses in nineteenth-century Britain were privately provided and that ships were charged for their use when they came into port.