The Economics of Transaction Costs

by Oliver E. Williamson, Scott E Masten

Overview

Transaction cost economics began to take shape around thirty years ago and has since been established as an essential tool used to illuminate a wide range of problems in economics and other social sciences. This paperback reader for students and scholars presents, in a convenient and accessible form, the articles which together 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 firm behavior, investment decision-making, contract bidding, regulation and legislation.

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781858989501
Publisher:	Edward Elgar Publishing
Publication date:	04/24/1999
Series:	An Elgar Critical Writings Reader
Pages:	560
Product dimensions:	6.62(w) x 9.62(h) x (d)

About the Author

Edited by the late Oliver E. Williamson, formerly Professor, Graduate School and Edgar F. Kaiser Professor Emeritus of Business, Economics, and Law, University of California, Berkeley, US and 2009 Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics for Studies of Economic Governance and Scott E. Masten, Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, US

Table of Contents

Contents: Introduction Part I: Background Part II: Apparatus Part III: Applications Index