The Nature of the Firm Origins, Evolution, and Development

by Williamson, Oliver E.; Winter, Sidney G.

• ISBN13: 9780195083569
• ISBN10: 0195083563
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1993-05-06
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

In 1937, Ronald H. Coase published "The Nature of the Firm," a classic paper that raised fundamental questions about the concept of the firm in economic theory. Coase proposed that the comparative costs of organizing transactions through markets rather than within firms are the primarydeterminants of the size and scope of firms. Coase won the 1991 Nobel Prize in Economics for this work. This volume derives from a conference held in 1987 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Coase's classic article. The first chapter affords an overview of the volume. It isfollowed by a republication of the 1937 article, and by the three lectures Coase presented at the conference. These lectures provide a lively and informative history of the origins and development of his thought. Subsequent chapters explore a wide-range of theoretical and empirical issues that havearisen in the transaction cost economic tradition. They illustrate the power of the transaction cost approach to enhance understanding not only of business firms, but of problems of economic organization generally. In addition to Coase's work, contributors include Sherwin Rosen, Paul Joskow, OliverHart, Harold Demsetz, Scott Masten, Benjamin Klein, as well as the volume's editors, Oliver E. Williamson, and Sidney G. Winter. The Nature of the Firm includes Coase's acceptance speech for his Nobel Prize in Economics.

Author Biography

Oliver E. Williamson is Transamerica Professor of Business Economics and Law at the University of California, Berkeley. Sidney G. Winter is Chief Economist of the United States General Accounting Office, Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

Contributors	ix
Introduction	3	(15)
Oliver E. Williamson
The Nature of the Firm (1937)	18	(16)
R. H. Coase
The Nature of the Firm: Origin	34	(14)
R. H. Coase
The Nature of the Firm: Meaning	48	(13)
R. H. Coase
The Nature of the Firm: Influence	61	(14)
R. H. Coase
Transactions Costs and Internal Labor Markets	75	(15)
Sherwin Rosen
The Logic of Economic Organization	90	(27)
Oliver E. Williamson
Asset Specificity and the Structure of Vertical Relationships: Empirical Evidence	117	(21)
Paul L. Joskow
Incomplete Contracts and the Theory of the Firm	138	(21)
Oliver D. Hart
The Theory of the Firm Revisited	159	(20)
Harold Demsetz
On Coase, Competence, and the Corporation	179	(17)
Sidney G. Winter
A Legal Basis for the Firm	196	(17)
Scott E. Masten
Vertical Integration as Organizational Ownership: The Fisher Body-General Motors Relationship Revisited	213	(23)
Benjamin Klein
1991 Nobel Lecture: The Institutional Structure of Production	227	(9)
R. H. Coase
Index	236