scholarly journals THEORY OF CONTRACTS IN THE LIGHT OF NEW INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMICS. THE SPECIFICITY OF AGRICULTURAL CONTRACTS

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 97-104
Author(s):  
Marzena Lemanowicz

The article reviews Polish and foreign economic literature regarding new institutional economics (NIE) and various research approaches used in the framework of NIE. Particular attention was paid to the economic theory of contracts and the transaction costs, as the limitation of transaction costs is indeed the main stimulus for contract signing. Special attention was given to agricultural contracts and their specificity. The article discusses different theories applied in the analysis of contracts, characterizes contracts according to different criteria, and draws attention to the importance of transaction costs in the theory of contracts. In addition, factors which contribute to these costs have been identified, indicating the necessity of adapting the principles of transaction cost economics to the needs of the agricultural sector.

Author(s):  
Andrew B. Whitford

This chapter comments on Oliver Williamson’s 1975 book,Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications, a critical analysis of how firms operate in markets. Williamson describes a new way of understanding markets and hierarchies by using the term “New Institutional Economics” for the first time. This chapter examines Williamson’s approach and the impact of his book, first by discussing his arguments about markets and hierarchies in relation to what policy analysts sometimes call “the politics of ideas”. It then considers Williamson’s particular interest in antitrust policy as well as his thesis about transaction cost economics. Finally, it evaluates the implications of Williamson’s research for the long-term development of a politics of ideas about firms in markets.


Author(s):  
Barak Richman

This chapter assesses New Institutional Economics (NIE). It begins by describing the author’s own understanding of the New Private Law (NPL). The chapter then provides a brief introduction to NIE and its intersection with the study of legal doctrines and institutions. NIE’s roots extend—at least—to Ronald Coase’s famous 1937 article, “The Nature of the Firm,” and more likely to the writings of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century political economists. These intellectual traditions have shaped what is now known as NIE into two distinct branches. The first branch examines institutions as “humanly designed constraints that structure political, social, and economic interactions.” The second branch of NIE focuses on more micro-level behavior. Called “the governance branch” and operationalized by transaction cost economics, the foundational idea is to describe firms not in neoclassical terms as production functions, but in organizational terms as governance structures. The chapter explains how both NPL and NIE exhibit the hallmarks of interdisciplinary, scholarly pluralism, and an inquisitive focus on real-world, tractable problems. It concludes with some thoughts about the future of NPL and, in particular, the lessons it can take from NIE’s successes.


2021 ◽  
pp. 088541222110620
Author(s):  
Sina Shahab

“Transaction costs,” as a well-established theory in New Institutional Economics, has been used to explain and analyze various planning matters for about 30 years since its introduction to planning literature. However, there is no study on how planning-related studies have utilized the theory. This paper conducts a systematic review that aims to develop a better understanding of how transaction-cost theory is used in planning literature. The review shows that while potential contributions and implications of transaction costs have been conceptually discussed in planning literature, the empirical studies have remained limited, particularly concerning the magnitude of such costs in planning systems.


2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 567-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
CLAUDE MÉNARD

AbstractNotwithstanding its major contributions, the ‘Williamsonian’ branch of New Institutional Economics suffers from black holes that recent developments have pinpointed. Rather than taking stock, this paper capitalizes on some of these developments to look ahead. Section 2 provides a reminder of the hard core of transaction cost economics (TCE) with an emphasis on problems that TCE has allowed to identify, particularly the richness of organizational arrangements, an issue that needs further investigation. Section 3 discusses how to better understand the embedment of organizational arrangements in their institutional environment. The concept of ‘meso-institutions’ is introduced as a mean to capture mechanisms providing the needed interface. Section 4 considers another neglected dimension that requires renewed attention: the interactions of organizational arrangements with technologies that partially define their setting. This paper proposes a roadmap to explore this issue, based on an ongoing research developed around the key concept of ‘criticality’. Section 5 concludes.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hassan Darabi ◽  
Danon Jalali

Transaction cost theory is largely used to investigate the formal domain of land and housing. In the informal domain, however, this perspective has been employed largely as a supplement in addressing the other fundamental notion in new institutional economics—property rights—despite the possibility that informality in land development can emerge regardless of the informality or formality of such rights. To cover this gap, this study developed a theoretical framework based on transaction cost theory to explain the formal–informal dichotomy in land development. The proposed framework maintains that land development depends on engaging in transactions that involve total or partial ownership of a combination of capital and land through lease and/or sale contracts, which enable landowners to earn from the new rental prices produced by the increase in land prices. Landowners are afforded two avenues from which to reduce transaction costs, namely, formal and informal institutional frameworks, each defining and enforcing restrictive rules on agents’ actions. These avenues, however, are simultaneously a source of new transaction costs that can affect the expected financial return of land development. Landowners therefore tend to choose the institutional framework that entails lower transaction costs but enables higher gains. Thus, the higher transaction costs associated with a formal institutional framework are the primary deterrents to the selection of this structure. In turn, informal land development continues to expand, regardless of the existence of formal prohibitive measures. We investigated the formal–informal dichotomy in the rural land development process in Tehran Province, Iran. The results indicated that transaction costs cause inefficiency in formal institutions, thereby driving the perpetuation of informal development.


2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cleiciele Albuquerque Augusto ◽  
José Paulo De Souza

The transaction cost economics (TCE), in the field of New Institutional Economics, have been shown as one of the most elaborate theoretical and explanatory constructs of arrangements existing in organizational reality. However, recent studies have sought on the Resource Based View (RBV) approach the theoretical foundations about setting these arrangements, in addition to highlighting a required complementarity between TCE and the RVB in understanding how they are formed. In this sense, the objective in this article was to understand how the complementarity theory TCE and RBV explain the configuration of the governance structures in the context of New Institutional Economics. The discussion presented in the form of essay, demonstrated that resources and differentiated capabilities could provide the basis for the proper choice of governance structures. These structures, in turn, are chosen in order to protect and achieve sustainable competitive advantages from these resources. Thus, that the complementary view of TCE with RBV is able to encompass more fully the aspects related to the choice of firm boundaries, minimizing the individual limitations of these approaches in terms of strategic analysis.


2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 450-468 ◽  
Author(s):  
ADRIANO JOSÉ PEREIRA ◽  
HERTON CASTIGLIONI LOPES

ABSTRACT This paper conceives of the market as an institution, and contrasts two theoretical approaches: Institutionalism, with an evolutionary and analytical bias, whose theoretical basis comes from “Old/Original” Institutionalism, and New Institutional Economics, with an analytical, contractual approach, linked to mainstream economics. Both approaches have given relevant contributions, as they consider the importance of institutions for economic performance. The limits of New Institutional Economics are particularly relevant, whose analysis of the operation of markets is centered on the logic of transaction cost economics as a determinant of economic performance. Evolutionary Institutionalism, in turn, sees the market within a broader scope, in which cost economies only partially explains economic performance, but it is not necessarily seen as a determining factor.


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