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Residual claims set in motion different behavior patterns from fixed claims. Whoever has the legal title to the residual claim has an incentive to make that residual-the difference between production costs and consumer value-as great as possible. The same thing, from a social point of view, is that the residual claimant has an incentive to supply what is desired by consumers at the least sacrifice of inputs used for things desired by other consumers. To the residual claimant, these social consequences of his behavior are secondary at best. But from the point of view of the economy at large, this behavior pattern that grows out of the attempt to maximize residual claims is crucial, and whether the residual claim turns out in fact to be large or small, or even positive or negative, is secondary.

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