Geographie Transaction Costs and Specialisation Opportunities of Small and Medium-Sized Regions: Scale Economies and Market Extension

Does Inter-Municipal Cooperation Really Reduce Delivery Costs? An Empirical Evaluation of the Role of Scale Economies, Transaction Costs, and Governance Arrangements

Urban Affairs Review ◽

10.1177/1078087419839492 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 57 (1) ◽

pp. 153-188 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Germà Bel ◽

Marianna Sebő

Keyword(s):

Service Delivery ◽

Transaction Costs ◽

Public Service ◽

Empirical Evaluation ◽

Scale Economies ◽

Delivery Costs ◽

Meta Regression Analysis ◽

The Relationship ◽

Related Transaction

Inter-municipal cooperation in public service delivery has attracted the interest of local authorities seeking to reform public service provision. Cost saving, together with better quality and coordination, has been among the most important drivers of such cooperation. However, the empirical results on inter-municipal cooperation and its associated costs offer divergent outcomes. By conducting a meta-regression analysis, we seek to explain this discrepancy. We formulate several hypotheses regarding scale economies, transaction costs, and governance of cooperation. While we find no clear indications of the role played by transaction costs in the relationship between cooperation and service delivery costs, we find strong evidence that population size and governance are significant in explaining the relationship. Specifically, small populations and delegation to a higher tier of government seem to offer cost advantages to cooperating municipalities. As an extension of our model, we seek to disentangle service-related transaction costs based on asset specificity and ease of measurability of the service.

Download Full-text

From transaction costs to transaction value: Overcoming the frictional paradigm

Voprosy Ekonomiki ◽

10.32609/0042-8736-2020-8-51-81 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 51-81

Author(s):

D. P. Frolov

Keyword(s):

Transaction Costs ◽

Transaction Cost ◽

Path Dependence ◽

Transaction Cost Economics ◽

Cost Minimization ◽

Low Cost ◽

Coase Theorem ◽

Transactional Analysis ◽

Transaction Sector ◽

Transaction Value

The transaction cost economics has accumulated a mass of dogmatic concepts and assertions that have acquired high stability under the influence of path dependence. These include the dogma about transaction costs as frictions, the dogma about the unproductiveness of transactions as a generator of losses, “Stigler—Coase” theorem and the logic of transaction cost minimization, and also the dogma about the priority of institutions providing low-cost transactions. The listed dogmas underlie the prevailing tradition of transactional analysis the frictional paradigm — which, in turn, is the foundation of neo-institutional theory. Therefore, the community of new institutionalists implicitly blocks attempts of a serious revision of this dogmatics. The purpose of the article is to substantiate a post-institutional (alternative to the dominant neo-institutional discourse) value-oriented perspective for the development of transactional studies based on rethinking and combining forgotten theoretical alternatives. Those are Commons’s theory of transactions, Wallis—North’s theory of transaction sector, theory of transaction benefits (T. Sandler, N. Komesar, T. Eggertsson) and Zajac—Olsen’s theory of transaction value. The article provides arguments and examples in favor of broader explanatory possibilities of value-oriented transactional analysis.

Download Full-text

Non-Public Monetary Systems in information Economy

Voprosy Ekonomiki ◽

10.32609/0042-8736-2013-5-151-159 ◽

2013 ◽

pp. 151-159

Author(s):

O. Krasilnikov ◽

E. Krasilnikova

Keyword(s):

Transaction Costs ◽

Information Economy ◽

Internet Technologies ◽

Monetary Systems ◽

Public Money ◽

Economic Institution

The article discusses the development of non-public monetary systems (NPMS), defined as a specific economic institution. It presents their comparison with public money systems depending on the size of transaction costs. The authors come to the conclusion that in conditions of the information economy on the basis of Internet-technologies NPMS receive a new impetus to their development and can make serious competition in regard to public monetary systems.

Download Full-text

Transactions in science in comparative perspective

Voprosy Ekonomiki ◽

10.32609/0042-8736-2018-9-52-69 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 52-69

Author(s):

A. N. Oleinik

Keyword(s):

Transaction Costs ◽

Academic Freedom ◽

North American ◽

Institutional Environment ◽

Scientific Productivity ◽

Institutional Environments ◽

Academic Administrator ◽

The North ◽

American Case ◽

Transactional Approach

The article develops a transactional approach to studying science. Two concepts play a particularly important role: the institutional environment of science and scientific transaction. As an example, the North-American and Russian institutional environments of science are compared. It is shown that structures of scientific transactions (between peers, between the scholar and the academic administrator, between the professor and the student), transaction costs and the scope of academic freedom differ in these two cases. Transaction costs are non-zero in both cases, however. At the same time, it is hypothesized that a greater scope of academic freedom in the North American case may be a factor contributing to a higher scientific productivity.

Download Full-text