In
economics
Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analy ...
and related disciplines, a transaction cost is a
cost
In Production (economics), production, research, retail, and accounting, a cost is the value of money that has been used up to produce something or deliver a service, and hence is not available for use anymore. In business, the cost may be one o ...
in making any economic
trade
Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market.
An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct exch ...
when participating in a
market.
Oliver E. Williamson defines transaction costs as the costs of running an economic system of companies, and unlike production costs, decision-makers determine strategies of companies by measuring transaction costs and production costs. Transaction costs are the total costs of making a transaction, including the cost of planning, deciding, changing plans, resolving disputes, and after-sales. Therefore, the transaction cost is one of the most significant factors in business operation and management.
Oliver E. Williamson's ''Transaction Cost Economics'' popularized the concept of transaction costs.
Douglass C. North
Douglass Cecil North (November 5, 1920 – November 23, 2015) was an American economist known for his work in economic history. He was the co-recipient (with Robert William Fogel) of the 1993 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. In the wor ...
argues that
institutions, understood as the set of rules in a society, are key in the determination of
transaction
Transaction or transactional may refer to:
Commerce
* Financial transaction, an agreement, communication, or movement carried out between a buyer and a seller to exchange an asset for payment
*Debits and credits in a Double-entry bookkeeping sys ...
costs. In this sense, institutions that facilitate low transaction costs, boost
economic growth.
[North, Douglass C. 1992. “Transaction costs, institutions, and economic performance.” San Francisco, CA: ICS Press.
]
Douglass North states that there are four factors that comprise transaction costs – "measurement", "enforcement", "ideological attitudes and perceptions", and "the size of the market".
''Measurement'' refers to the calculation of the value of all aspects of the good or service involved in the transaction.
''Enforcement'' can be defined as the need for an unbiased third party to ensure that neither party involved in the transaction reneges on their part of the deal.
These first two factors appear in the concept of ''ideological attitudes and perceptions'', North's third aspect of transaction costs.
Ideological attitudes and perceptions encapsulate each individual's set of values, which influences their interpretation of the world.
The final aspect of transaction costs, according to North, is ''market size'', which affects the partiality or impartiality of transactions.
Transaction costs can be divided into three broad categories:
* ''
Search and information costs'' are costs such as in determining that the required good is available on the market, which has the lowest price, etc.
*''Bargaining and decision costs'' are the costs required to come to an acceptable agreement with the other party to the transaction, drawing up an appropriate
contract
A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties that creates, defines, and governs mutual rights and obligations between them. A contract typically involves the transfer of goods, services, money, or a promise to ...
and so on. In
game theory this is analyzed for instance in the
game of chicken. On asset markets and in
organizational economics, the transaction cost is some function of the distance between the
supply and demand
In microeconomics, supply and demand is an economic model of price determination in a market. It postulates that, holding all else equal, in a competitive market, the unit price for a particular good, or other traded item such as labo ...
.
* ''Policing and enforcement costs'' are the costs of making sure the other party sticks to the terms of the contract, and taking appropriate action (often through the
legal system
The contemporary national legal systems are generally based on one of four basic systems: civil law, common law, statutory law, religious law or combinations of these. However, the legal system of each country is shaped by its unique history an ...
) if this turns out not to be the case.
For example, the buyer of a used car faces a variety of different transaction costs. The search costs are the costs of finding a car and determining the car's condition. The bargaining costs are the costs of negotiating a price with the seller. The policing and enforcement costs are the costs of ensuring that the seller delivers the car in the promised condition.
History of development
The idea that transactions form the basis of an economic thinking was introduced by the
institutional economist
Institutional economics focuses on understanding the role of the evolutionary process and the role of institutions in shaping economic behavior. Its original focus lay in Thorstein Veblen's instinct-oriented dichotomy between technology on the ...
John R. Commons (1931). He said that:
The term "transaction cost" is frequently thought to have been coined by
Ronald Coase
Ronald Harry Coase (; 29 December 1910 – 2 September 2013) was a British economist and author. Coase received a bachelor of commerce degree (1932) and a PhD from the London School of Economics, where he was a member of the faculty until 1951. ...
, who used it to develop a theoretical framework for predicting when certain economic tasks would be performed by
firms, and when they would be performed on the
market. However, the term is actually absent from his early work up to the 1970s. While he did not coin the specific term, Coase indeed discussed "costs of using the price mechanism" in his 1937 paper ''
The Nature of the Firm'', where he first discusses the concept of transaction costs. This is the first time that the concept of transaction costs has been introduced into the study of enterprises and market organizations, but "transaction cost" as a formal theory started in the late 1960s and early 1970s. And refers to the "Costs of Market Transactions" in his seminal work, ''
The Problem of Social Cost'' (1960). The term "Transaction Costs" itself can instead be traced back to the monetary economics literature of the 1950s, and does not appear to have been consciously 'coined' by any particular individual.
Robert Kissell
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honou ...
and Morton Glantz Morton may refer to:
People
* Morton (surname)
* Morton (given name)
Fictional
* Morton Koopa, Jr., a character and boss in ''Super Mario Bros. 3''
* A character in the ''Charlie and Lola'' franchise
* A character in the 2008 film '' Horton ...
, ''Optimal Trading Strategies'', AMACOM, 2003, pp. 1-23.
Arguably, transaction cost reasoning became most widely known through
Oliver E. Williamson's ''Transaction Cost Economics''. Today, transaction cost economics is used to explain a number of different behaviours. Often this involves considering as "transactions" not only the obvious cases of
buying and
selling, but also day-to-day emotional interactions, informal
gift
A gift or a present is an item given to someone without the expectation of payment or anything in return. An item is not a gift if that item is already owned by the one to whom it is given. Although gift-giving might involve an expectation ...
exchanges, etc. Oliver E. Williamson, one of the most cited social scientist at the turn of the century,
was awarded the 2009
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.
According to Williamson, the determinants of transaction costs are frequency,
specificity, uncertainty, limited rationality, and opportunistic behavior.
At least two definitions of the phrase "transaction cost" are commonly used in literature. Transaction costs have been broadly defined by
Steven N. S. Cheung
Steven Ng-Sheong Cheung ( born December 1, 1935) is a Hong Kong-born American economist who specializes in the fields of transaction costs and property rights, following the approach of new institutional economics. He achieved his public fame wi ...
as any costs that are not conceivable in a "
Robinson Crusoe
''Robinson Crusoe'' () is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719. The first edition credited the work's protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and the book a tr ...
economy"—in other words, any costs that arise due to the existence of
institutions. For Cheung, if the term "transaction costs" were not already so popular in economics literatures, they should more properly be called "institutional costs".
[Steven N. S. Cheung "On the New Institutional Economics", ''Contract Economics''][L. Werin and H. Wijkander (eds.), Basil Blackwell, 1992, pp. 48-65] But many economists seem to restrict the definition to exclude costs internal to an organization.
[ Harold Demsetz (2003) “Ownership and the Externality Problem.” In T. L. Anderson and F. S. McChesney (eds.) Property Rights: Cooperation, Conflict, and Law. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press] The latter definition parallels Coase's early analysis of "costs of the price mechanism" and the origins of the term as a market trading fee.
Starting with the broad definition, many economists then ask what kind of institutions (firms, markets,
franchises, etc.) minimize the transaction costs of producing and distributing a particular good or service. Often these relationships are categorized by the kind of
contract
A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties that creates, defines, and governs mutual rights and obligations between them. A contract typically involves the transfer of goods, services, money, or a promise to ...
involved. This approach sometimes goes under the rubric of
new institutional economics
New Institutional Economics (NIE) is an economic perspective that attempts to extend economics by focusing on the institutions (that is to say the social and legal norms and rules) that underlie economic activity and with analysis beyond earl ...
.
Technologies associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution such as, in particular, distributed ledger technology and blockchains are likely to reduce transaction costs comparatively to traditional forms of contracting.
Examples
A supplier may bid in a very competitive environment with a customer to build a
widget. However, to make the widget, the supplier will be required to build specialized machinery which cannot be easily redeployed to make other products. Once the contract is awarded to the supplier, the relationship between customer and supplier changes from a competitive environment to a
monopoly
A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...
/
monopsony relationship, known as a
bilateral monopoly. This means that the customer has greater leverage over the supplier such as when price cuts occur. To avoid these potential costs, "hostages" may be swapped to avoid this event. These hostages could include partial ownership in the widget factory; revenue sharing might be another way.
Car companies and their suppliers often fit into this category, with the car companies forcing price cuts on their suppliers. Defense suppliers and the military appear to have the opposite problem, with cost overruns occurring quite often. Technologies like
enterprise resource planning
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is the integrated management of main business processes, often in real time and mediated by software and technology. ERP is usually referred to as a category of business management software—typically a sui ...
(ERP) can provide technical support for these strategies.
An example of measurement, one of North's four factors of transaction costs, is detailed in Mancur Olson's work ''Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development'' (1993) – Olson writes that roving bandits calculate the success of their banditry based on how much money they can take from their citizens. Enforcement, the second of North's factors of transaction costs, is exemplified in
Diego Gambetta's book ''The Sicilian Mafia: the Business of Private Protection'' (1996). Gambetta describes the concept of the "Peppe", who occupies the role of mediator in dealings with the Sicilian mafia – the Peppe is needed because it is not certain that both parties will maintain their end of the deal. Measurement and enforcement comprise North's third factor, ideological attitudes and perceptions – each individual's views influence how they go about each transaction.
Differences from neoclassical microeconomics
Williamson argues in ''The Mechanisms of Governance'' (1996) that Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) differs from
neoclassical microeconomics in the following points:
The transaction costs frameworks reject the notion of
instrumental rationality and its implications for predicting behavior. Whereas instrumental rationality assumes that an actor's understanding of the world is the same as the objective reality of the world, scholars who focus on transaction costs note that actors lack perfect information about the world (due to bounded rationality).
Game theory
In game theory, transaction costs have been studied by Anderlini and Felli (2006). They consider a model with two parties who together can generate a surplus. Both parties are needed to create the surplus. Yet, before the parties can negotiate about dividing the surplus, each party must incur transaction costs. Anderlini and Felli find that transaction costs cause a severe problem when there is a mismatch between the parties’
bargaining powers and the magnitude of the transaction costs. In particular, if a party has large transaction costs but in future negotiations it can seize only a small fraction of the surplus (i.e., its bargaining power is small), then this party will not incur the transaction costs and hence the total surplus will be lost. It has been shown that the presence of transaction costs as modelled by Anderlini and Felli can overturn central insights of the Grossman-Hart-Moore
theory of the firm
The theory of the firm consists of a number of economic theories that explain and predict the nature of the firm, company, or corporation, including its existence, behaviour, structure, and relationship to the market. Firms are key drivers in ec ...
.
Evaluative mechanisms
Oliver E. Williamson (1979) stated that evaluative mechanisms consist of four variables, namely, frequency of exchange, asset specificity, uncertainty, and threat of opportunism.
* Frequency of exchange refers to buyer activity in the market or the frequency of transactions between the parties occurs. The higher the frequency of transactions, the higher the relative administrative and bargaining costs.
* Asset specificity consist of site, physical asset, and human asset specificity. The asset specific investment is a specialized investment, which does not have market liquidity. Once the contract is terminated, the asset specific investment cannot to be redeployed. Therefore, a change or termination of this transaction will result in significant loss.
* Uncertainty refers to the risks that may occur in a market exchange. The increase of environmental uncertainty will be accompanied by the increase of transaction cost, such as information acquisition cost, supervision cost and bargaining cost.
* Threat of opportunism is attributed to human nature. Opportunistic behavior of vendors can lead to higher transaction coordination costs or even termination of contracts. A company can use governance mechanism to reducing the threat of opportunism.
See also
*
Diseconomy of scale
*
Economic anthropology
Economic anthropology is a field that attempts to explain human economic behavior in its widest historic, geographic and cultural scope. It is an amalgamation of economics and anthropology. It is practiced by anthropologists and has a complex re ...
*
Ronald Coase
Ronald Harry Coase (; 29 December 1910 – 2 September 2013) was a British economist and author. Coase received a bachelor of commerce degree (1932) and a PhD from the London School of Economics, where he was a member of the faculty until 1951. ...
*
Herbert A. Simon
*
Oliver E. Williamson
*
Opportunity Cost
In microeconomic theory, the opportunity cost of a particular activity is the value or benefit given up by engaging in that activity, relative to engaging in an alternative activity. More effective it means if you chose one activity (for exampl ...
*
Interaction cost
*
Market impact
*
Property rights (economics)
Property rights are constructs in economics for determining how a resource or economic good is used and owned, which have developed over ancient and modern history, from Abrahamic law to Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. R ...
*
Switching costs Switching costs or switching barriers are terms used in microeconomics, strategic management, and marketing. They may be defined as the disadvantages or expenses consumers feel they experience, along with the economic and psychological costs of swit ...
*
Theory of the firm
The theory of the firm consists of a number of economic theories that explain and predict the nature of the firm, company, or corporation, including its existence, behaviour, structure, and relationship to the market. Firms are key drivers in ec ...
*
The Nature of the Firm
*
Transaction cost accounting
*
Vertical integration
Notes
References
*
North, Douglass C. 1992. “Transaction costs, institutions, and economic performance.” San Francisco, CA: ICS Press.
*
*Coggan, Anthea; van Grieken, Martijn; Jardi, Xavier; Boullier, Alexis (2017). "Does asset specificity influence transaction costs and adoption? An analysis of sugarcane farmers in the Great Barrier Reef catchments". ''Journal of Environmental Economics and Policy''. 6 (1): 36–50.
doi:10.1080/21606544.2016.1175975.
ISSN
An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is an eight-digit serial number used to uniquely identify a serial publication, such as a magazine. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title. ISSNs ...
2160-6544.
*
*
*Ketokivi, Mikko; Mahoney, Joseph T. (2017-10-26). "Transaction Cost Economics as a Theory of the Firm, Management, and Governance". ''Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management''.
doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190224851.013.6. Retrieved 2020-11-01.
* Klaes, M. (2008). "transaction costs, history of," ''
The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics
''The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics'' (2018), 3rd ed., is a twenty-volume reference work on economics published by Palgrave Macmillan. It contains around 3,000 entries, including many classic essays from the original Inglis Palgrave Diction ...
'', 2nd Edition
Abstract.* Niehans, Jürg (1987). “Transaction costs," ''The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics'', v. 4, pp. 677–80.
* Pierre Schlag
The Problem of Transaction Costs 62 Southern California Law Review 1661 (1989).
*
*
*
Williamson, Oliver E.
Oliver Eaton Williamson (September 27, 1932 – May 21, 2020) was an American economist, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, which he shared with Elinor Ostro ...
(1981). "The Economics of Organization: The Transaction Cost Approach," ''The American Journal of Sociology'', 87(3), pp
548-577
* _____ (1985). ''The Economic Institutions of Capitalism: Firms, Markets, Relational Contracting''
Preview to p. 25. New York, NY: Free Press.
* _____ (1996). ''The Mechanisms of Governance''
Preview.Oxford University Press.
* _____ (2002). "The Theory of the Firm as Governance Structure: From Choice to Contract," ''Journal of Economic Perspectives'', 16(3), pp
171-195.* Milgrom, P., and J. Roberts, "Bargaining Costs, Influence Costs, and the Organization of Economic Activity," in J.E. Alt and K.A. Shepsle (eds.), Perspectives on Positive Political Economy, Cambridge: University of Cambridge, 1990, 57-89.
*
*Young, Suzanne (2013). "Transaction Cost Economics". ''Springer Link''.
doi:10.1007/978-3-642-28036-8_221. Retrieved 2020-11-01.
{{Authority control
Costs
Production economics
New institutional economics