Transaction Cost Economics

‘This collection of essays provides interesting and . . . contentious readings.’
– S.R.H. Jones, Business History

‘The book edited by Ménard is precisely written in the spirit of transaction cost reasoning. The book will be of particular interest to those who study applications of transaction cost economics.’
– Thorsten Posselt, Kyklos

‘Any book. . . which seeks to highlight the potential applications of the subject in large organisations and across institutional environments deserves attention. The contributors from the United States include Oliver Williamson, Nobel Laureate Douglass North, and Paul Joskow from MIT. With these contributions alone, the resulting book deserves serious attention. . . . this volume is successful in highlighting a series of new issues in institutional economics, not least in attempting to identify why recent developments in economics have taken place or evolved in the way that they have and not in alternative forms.’
– Peter Ingram, The Economic Journal

This important new book deals with some of the most fundamental issues of transaction cost economics. It focuses on the analysis of the internal nature and characteristics of organizations and on the subtle interactions between institutional environment and governance structures over time.

Transaction Cost Economics investigates the nature of contractual arrangements involved in large organizations, the ‘configurations’ of corporations, the modes of governance implemented, and the respective role of different constituencies. The second series of problems addressed in the book concerns the interaction between the institutional environment and governance structures over time, with special emphasis on the Russian privatization programme and the narcotics market. These twin analyses substantiate the distinction between private and public ordering. The book is strongly oriented towards increasing the operationalization of the concepts of transaction cost economics.

The book will be essential reading for everyone interested in the new institutional economics and by recent developments in the theory of contracts, in transaction costs economics and in organisation theory. Because of its emphasis on potential applications, it will also be of interest to readers from management science and those involved in the analysis of economies in transition.

http://atom.univ-paris1.fr/menard