> The theorists, most notably Gul, Sonnenschein and Wilson and Fudenberg, Levine and Tirole, formalized Coase’s insight and showed that under quite general conditions the logic goes through. Which is rather surprising, since, as Tim and I point out, Coase’s conjecture implies that many patents and copyrights are essentially worthless — a prediction wildly at variance with the facts.

The authors themselves had the same reaction.

It's similar to physics: you make small simple models, you investigate what they say, you compare to what you get in reality, and then you make adjustments.

The interesting bit is: what kinds of friction or airpressure or shape do you need to add to your pig to recover what parts of reality?