Reconsiderations of Transaction Cost Theory
According to Putterman, most economists accept distinction between intra-firm and interfirm transaction but also that the two shade into each other; the extent of a firm is not simply defined by its capital stock. Richardson for example, notes that a rigid distinction fails because of the existence of intermediate forms between firm and market such as inter-firm co-operation.
Klein (1983) asserts that “Economists now recognise that such a sharp distinction does not exist and that it is useful to consider also transactions occurring within the firm as representing market (contractual) relationships.” The costs involved in such transactions that are within a firm or even between the firms are the transaction costs.
Ultimately, whether the firm constitutes a domain of bureaucratic direction that is shielded from market forces or simply “a legal fiction”, “a nexus for a set of contracting relationships among individuals” (as Jensen and Meckling put it) is “a function of the completeness of markets and the ability of market forces to penetrate intra-firm relationships”.
Read more about this topic: Theory Of The Firm
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