退耕还林绩效的博弈分析.docVIP

The Nature of the Firm(1937)( R.H.COASE Up to now it has been assumed that the exchange transactions which take place through the price mechanism are homogeneous. In fact, nothing could be more diverse than the actual transactions which take place in our modem world. This would seem to imply that the costs of carrying out exchange transactions through the price mechanism will vary considerably as will also the costs of organizing these transactions within the firm. It seems therefore possible that quite apart from the question of diminishing returns the costs of organizing certain transactions within the firm may be greater than the costs of carrying out the exchange transactions in the open market. This would necessarily imply that there were exchange transactions carried out through the price mechanism, but would it mean that there would have to be more than one firm? Clearly not, for all those areas in the economic system where the direction of resources was not dependent directly on the price mechanism could be organized within one firm. The factors which were discussed earlier would seem to be the important ones, though it is difficult to say whether diminishing returns to management or the rising supply price of factors is likely to be the more important. Other things being equal, therefore, a firm will tend to be larger: a. the less the costs of organizing and the slower these costs rise with an increase in the transactions organized. b. the less likely the entrepreneur is to make mistakes and the smaller the increase in mistakes with an increase in the transactions organized. c. the greater the lowering (or the less the rise) in the supply price of factors of production to firms of larger size. Apart from variations in the supply price of factors of production to firms of different sizes, it would appear that the costs of organizing and the losses through mistakes will increase with an increase in the spatial distribution of the transactions organized, in th