The ECONOMICS OF TRANSACTION
COSTS
Transaction cost economics
began to take shape around thirty years ago and has since been established as an essential
tool to illuminate a wide range of problems in economics and other social sciences. This
paperback reader presents, in a convenient and accessible form, the articles which form
the foundations of research in transaction cost economics.
The volume is divided into
three parts: the first part presents the background to the field and includes those
path-breaking papers from Coase (1937 and 1972), Williamson (1971) and Alchian and Demsetz
(1972). The second part addresses the apparatus of transaction cost economics and includes
papers on the structure and limits of firms. The third part presents the applications of
transaction cost economics to vertical integration, contracting, regulation and political
organization.
The editors, themselves
distinguished scholars in the field, have written a new introduction which sketches the
history of research in the field and offers some thoughts about the future of transaction
cost economics.
Oliver E. Williamson is Edgar
F. Kaiser Professor of Business, Professor of Economics and Professor of Law at the
University of California, Berkeley, USA and Scott E. Masten is Louis & Myrtle
Moskowitz Research Professor in Business and Law and Professor of Business Economics and
Public Policy at the University of Michigan Business School, USA.
389pp