Transaction cost economics and business administration

Abstract

This paper traces the origins of transaction cost economics to three seminal people who had an intense interest in business: Ronald Coase, Chester Barnard, and Herbert Simon. By contrast with the neoclassical theory of the firm, which is a top-down construction, the transaction cost economics theory of the firm is a bottom-up construction—which is to say that it is much more microanalytic (the transaction is made the basic unit of analysis) and is comparative in its mode of analysis. Several top-down maxims that have their origins in economic theory are examined in a bottom-up way, which serves to uncover conceptual and/or implementation problems with each. I furthermore examine growing applications of transaction cost reasoning to business administration and within the social sciences.