What is transaction cost economics and who presented it?
Answer:
"What is..." has a relatively long answer. In a nutshell it examines how various costs associated with exchanges between individuals/firms/organization... influences the structure of the contract between the parties, and/or the structure of the organization. Central to the definition you seek is what constitutes a "transaction cost". A nonexhaustive list would include monitoring and enforcement costs, and costs of negotiation. In some problems it also recognizes the costs associated with merely arriving at a price for a good (why are those apples priced per pound, but the radishes are priced per bundle?)
Ronald Coase (Nobel Prize in economics) is usually given credit for developing the concept, though the term actually predates him, and some of his seminal works didn't even include the phrase "transaction costs" (despite them being central to work).
Other economists in this area include Oliver Williamson, Armen Alchian, and Steven N.S. Cheung. All of these economists can be found in Wikipedia. [Cheung has had recent problems with the law which, somewhat ironically, appear to spring from his overestimating, if not the cost, then the efficiency of monitoring and enforcement.] You can also Google Yoram Barzel at the University of Washington's Department of Economics. Read up on these economists and you'll have a better understanding of where transaction costs economics fits into the larger economics landscape.
Related areas of economics include property rights analysis and new institutional economics.
The answers post by the user, for information only, FunQA.com does not guarantee the right.
More Questions and Answers: