Williamson's classification of transaction costs. Conditions for the existence of transaction costs in the transaction theory of organizations. D. North's theory of state

Among the costs that economics deals with, we must distinguish between two types of costs:

• transformation costs (technology costs);
• transaction costs.

Transformation costs are the costs that accompany the process of physically changing the material, as a result of which we get a product that has a certain value.

Transformation costs also include certain elements of measurement and planning. They are usually ignored or referred to as transaction costs, while they may be pure technology.

Transaction costs- there are costs that ensure the transfer of property rights from one hand to another and the protection of these rights. Unlike transformation costs, transaction costs are not related to the value creation process itself.

Forms of transaction costs

Transaction costs (transaction costs -transactioncosts) are the costs in the area associated with the transfer of . The category of transaction costs was introduced into economics in the 1930s. Ronald Coase and is now widely used. In his article "The Nature of the Firm" he defined transaction costs as operating costs.

Consider the possible alternatives provided to us by everyday life. A typical example is apartment renovation. You can do it yourself if you know how and if you have an interest in it. Or you can organize the whole process by hiring workers from the market for each specific operation, buying paint and calculating how much it is needed, etc. In this case, you are trying to get into a series of transactions that will be purely market and exclude your interaction with by one firm. After all you do not trust the company in advance, believing that it has its own interest, and you will make repairs cheaper. However, if you are a busy or wealthy person, you hire a company to renovate your apartment, because your opportunity cost of time is higher than the cost that you spend on organizing this process. This is most often associated with wealth effect"- "wealth effect". For the first time this term was also introduced by Coase. In his theory, the concept of "transaction costs" is opposed to the concept of "agency costs", and the choice between one or another type of costs is largely determined by the "wealth effect".

Currently, transaction costs are understood by the vast majority of scientists integrally, as the costs of the functioning of the system. Transaction costs are the costs that arise when individuals exchange their property rights under conditions of incomplete information or confirm them under the same conditions. When people exchange property rights they enter into a contract. When they confirm their ownership, they do not enter into any contractual relationship (they already have it), but they protect it from attacks by third parties. They are afraid that their property rights will be infringed by a third party, so they spend resources on protecting these rights (for example, building a fence, maintaining the police, etc.).

Generally, there are five main forms of transaction costs:

• information search costs;
• the costs of negotiating and concluding contracts;
• measurement costs;
• costs of specification and protection of property rights;
• costs of opportunistic behavior.

Information Search Costs associated with its asymmetric distribution in the market: it takes time and money to search for potential buyers or sellers. The incompleteness of the available information turns into additional costs associated with the purchase of goods at prices above equilibrium (or sale below equilibrium), with losses arising from the purchase of substitute goods.

The cost of negotiating and concluding contracts also require time and resources. The costs associated with negotiating the terms of sale, legal registration of the transaction, often significantly increase the price of the item being sold.

A significant part of transaction costs are measurement costs, which is connected not only with the direct costs of measuring equipment and the measurement process itself, but also with the errors that inevitably arise in this process. In addition, for a number of goods and services, only indirect or ambiguous measurement is allowed. How, for example, to evaluate the qualifications of a hired employee or the quality of a purchased car? Certain savings are caused by the standardization of manufactured products, as well as the guarantees provided by the company (free warranty repairs, the right to exchange defective products for good ones, etc.). However, these measures cannot completely eliminate the costs of measurement.

Especially great costs of specification and protection of property rights. In a society where there is no reliable legal protection, cases of constant violation of rights are not uncommon. The time and money required to restore them can be extremely high. This should also include the costs of maintaining court and government agencies who are on guard of law and order.

Costs of Opportunistic Behavior are also related to, although not limited to, information asymmetry. The point is that post-contract behavior is very difficult to predict. Dishonest individuals will comply with the terms of the contract at a minimum or even evade their implementation (if sanctions are not provided). Such moral hazard always exists. It is especially great in conditions of joint work - team work, when the contribution of each cannot be clearly separated from the efforts of other team members, especially if the potential capabilities of each are completely unknown. So, opportunistic called the behavior of an individual who evades the terms of a contract in order to profit at the expense of partners. It can take the form of extortion or blackmail when the role of those team members who cannot be replaced by others becomes obvious. Using their relative advantages, such team members may demand special conditions of work or pay for themselves, blackmailing others with the threat of leaving the team.

Thus, transaction costs arise before the exchange process (ex ante), during the exchange process and after it (ex post). The deepening division of labor and the development of specialization contribute to the growth of transaction costs. Their value also depends on the dominant form of ownership in society. There are three main forms of ownership: private, common (communal) and state. Let's consider them from the point of view of the theory of transaction costs.

Paul R. Milgrom and John Roberts proposed the following classification of transaction costs. They divide them into two categories, coordination costs and motivational costs.

Coordination costs:

• Costs of defining contract details— a market survey to determine what can generally be bought on the market.
• Costs of defining contracts— studying the conditions of partners who supply the necessary services or goods.
• Direct Coordination Costs— the need to create a structure within which the parties are brought together.

Motivational costs:

• Costs associated with incomplete information. The limited information about the market can lead to a refusal to complete a transaction (acquisition of a good). This is due to the fact that the level of uncertainty can become so high that people prefer to refuse a transaction rather than spend energy on obtaining additional information.
• The cost of opportunism. These costs are associated with overcoming possible opportunistic behavior, with overcoming the partner’s dishonesty towards you, and lead to the fact that you hire an overseer, or try to find and put into the contract some additional measures of your partner’s effectiveness.

O. Williamson tried to evaluate all transactions by frequency of transactions and specificity of assets.

1. One-time or elementary exchange on an anonymous market.

An example of a one-time purchase would be buying a teapot in the market. Having bought one kettle, you will buy the next one only when this one breaks. In this case, there are no specific assets, but the fact is that the seller does not care who to sell the teapot to. Price is the only determining factor here.

2. Repeated exchange of bulk goods.

There is still no asset specificity. For example, constantly buying bread from the same seller, you know that he good quality, and therefore do not spend money on an additional assessment, whether the bread was sold to you good, what kind of bread is in other bakeries, etc. This is very important, because in this way you significantly save on the costs of searching, on the costs of measuring the quality of bread, and your behavior gives the seller greater confidence in turnover (that he will sell bread).

3. Recurring contract associated with investments in specific assets.

What are "Special Assets"? A specific asset is always created for a specific transaction. Let's say I built a building to be used as a workshop. I can, of course, use it alternatively, but then I will suffer losses. Those. even the next best opportunity after the best use of this asset brings much less income and is associated with risk. Specific assets are those costs, the next use of which is much less profitable.

4. Investments in idosyncratic (unique, exclusive) assets.

Idiosyncratic asset is an asset that, in alternative use (when it is withdrawn from a given transaction), loses its value altogether, or its value becomes negligible. These assets include half of production investments - investments in a specific technological process. For example, a built blast furnace, except for its intended purpose, can no longer be used. Even if climbing competitions are held on it, it will not pay even 1% of the cost of its construction. In this case, the asset is idiosyncratic, i.e. tied to a particular technology.

The most concise description of transaction costs was made by Kenneth Arrow, the 1972 Nobel laureate in economics for his contribution to general theory equilibrium and for work in the field of information theory. In his opinion, these are the costs of "keeping the economic system on track." This definition reflects the essence of transaction costs, emphasizes their integral nature, but for analysis it is practically useless. To present these costs in an operational form, we will describe their most significant categories and groups.

Costs of coordination and motivation (Milgrom-Roberts classification)

Institutions solve the problems of motivation and coordination under conditions of uncertainty of choice and limited rationality of agents, so one can try to classify emerging transaction costs according to the nature of the problem they generate. Such an attempt was made Paul Milgrom and John Roberts(31 Milgrom P., Roberts J. Economics, organization and management: In 2 vols. Vol. 1. St. Petersburg: School of Economics, 1999). They classify transaction costs as one of two types: coordination costs or motivation costs.

Coordination costs are the costs of ensuring the temporal and spatial congruence of the participants in a transaction.

The cost of motivation- these are the costs of ensuring control, monitoring, collecting information about the partners' compliance with mutual obligations under the contract, etc. Like the costs of coordination, they can arise both in the market and within the company, which is associated with two factors - incompleteness and imperfection of information, and as well as the opportunism of the participants in the interaction.

Costsex ante Andex post (North-Eggertsson classification)

Using the Milgrom-Roberts classification, it is possible to identify potential sources of transaction costs, but it is difficult to even qualitatively assess these costs themselves in a particular transaction. This requires another classification - a simple and clear one. North-Eggertsson classification She, the only one, is built according to the observed outward signs some activity that generates the corresponding costs and allows you to trace them as the stages of contractual relations are implemented. This classification distinguishes six categories of transaction costs:

costs of information search (search activities);

costs of negotiating (bargaining activities);

the costs of drawing up a contract (contract making activities);

costs of monitoring (monitoring);

Costs of enforcement of contracts (enforcement);

costs of protection from third parties (protection against 3rd parties).

Let's consider them sequentially.

· costs of information search (search activities);

Exist four main search areas:

· acceptable price;

Information about the quality of available goods and services;

information about the "quality" of sellers;

Information about the "quality" of buyers.

The costs associated with activities in these areas are borne by all economic entities - both individuals and firms.

The search can also be carried out on open anonymous market , and through social media , which include agents (including the use of friendships) .

Idiosyncratic search. Such a search is predominantly based on personal connections and/or attributed characteristics rather than on institutionalized industry standards and norms. Due to low confidence in latest information, collected in this way, cannot be used in the analysis of the effectiveness of other relationships. Therefore, the costs associated with searching are idiosyncratic in nature (hence the name search).

Comprehensive search. This search is typical for industries with a higher level of organization, but at the same time it is rarely formalized in written standards and rules and is furnished with bureaucratic procedures (for example, industry specialization of a region with a low level of entry and exit of new firms). Information obtained through personal connections is here supplemented with information that is trusted by all members of the industry, and the search is most effective.

routine search. This is a more formalized and bureaucratic way of collecting information about business partners coupled with loosely organized industry procedures. In this case, firms use the routines that have already developed in the industry, and thus overcome uncertainty.

Industry search. This search relies mainly on the procedures of a highly structured industry. Firms do not trust information obtained through personal connections. They rely on information provided to them by rating agencies, audit firms, etc. Obviously, the cost of finding partners is much lower in an industry that is highly structured. However, the circle of possible partners is narrowing down.

· costs of negotiating (bargaining activities);

Negotiating costs include three categories.

This is the cost of translators, if we are talking about foreign partners, and the costs associated with partners misunderstanding each other due to differences in business culture.

· contract making activities costs;

The costs associated with fixing the content of the contract in one way or another.

Unlike the costs of negotiating, the consequences of contractual incompleteness before the conclusion of the contract is almost impossible to calculate. When drawing up a contract, the parties must also take into account that their position on certain issues can be used to obtain information that the parties would not voluntarily disclose.

TO contract drafting costs include legal support for the drafting of contracts (up to 10-15% of the contract amount), the cost of wages for employees who prepare this contract, and their technical support (computers, printers, paper, etc.).

· monitoring costs;

At the stage of implementation of the contract, the parties bear certain, often very significant, costs of monitoring the activities of their partners.

Monitoring, firstly, provides information about the actions of partners (as well as whether it is necessary to demand compensation, fines, etc.) and, secondly, stimulates the conscientious fulfillment of contractual obligations.

Monitoring the execution of contracts has not only technological, but also cultural specifics, and therefore its intensity in different countries different. Monitoring intensity characterized by the ratio of the number of managers and administrative workers to the number of workers and employees employed in production in each country.

· costs of enforcement of contracts (enforcement);

The participants in the interaction may try to evade the fulfillment of contractual obligations, since these obligations often contradict their immediate interests. Therefore, it is necessary enforcement mechanisms to the execution of contracts. The form and effectiveness of coercion depends on the type of contractual relationship.

The organization of this or that enforcement system in different countries is associated with different costs (which is determined both by cultural differences between countries and by different costs of access to the legal system). In the current Russian economic practice, litigation, in fact, is a continuation of negotiations, which also requires certain investments, strategic behavior, and trade.

Forcing partners to fulfill obligations

Exist two mechanisms such coercion.

Reputational enforcement mechanism. It is based on the firm's interest in maintaining good relationships with past, present and future partners. For reputational control of a firm's behavior to be effective, information flows must be rapidly and reliably distributed throughout the business community (say, an industry), and the number of leading firms must be more or less constant. High barriers to entry and exit from the industry and the proximity of firms create prerequisites for effective reputational enforcement.

A significant number of types of classifications of transaction costs is a consequence of the plurality of approaches to the study of this problem. O. Williamson distinguishes two types of transaction costs: ex ante And ex post. to costs like ex ante includes the costs of drafting an agreement and negotiating it. type costs ex post include organizational and operational costs associated with the use of the management structure; costs arising from poor adaptation; costs of litigation arising in the course of adjusting contractual relations to unforeseen circumstances; costs associated with the fulfillment of contractual obligations 36 .

K. Menard divides transaction costs into 4 groups 37 :

Isolation costs;

Scale costs;

Information costs;

Behavior costs.

In the functioning of any organization, there is, first of all, the problem of inseparability, and this is precisely why the total costs of singling out arise. In most cases, economic activity is carried out by joint efforts, and it is impossible to accurately measure the marginal productivity of each factor involved and its reward. K. Menard gives an example of a team of loaders: “In order to set the wages of the team, the use of the organization is more efficient than the use of the market. The organization outperforms the market even when the latter requires too detailed, otherwise impossible, differentiation” 38 .

Further, K. Menard singles out the costs of scale. The larger the market, the more impersonal the acts of exchange are, and the more it is necessary to develop institutional mechanisms that determine the nature of the contract, the rules for its application, sanctions for non-compliance with obligations, etc. Employment contracts designed to stabilize the relationship between employer and hired person, supply contracts to ensure the regularity of the flow of costs are partly justified by the need to establish “trust, which the size of markets and periodic contracting would make both problematic and costly” 39 .

Information costs represent a separate category. The transaction is associated with information system, whose role in modern economy plays the price system. This category includes costs covering all aspects of the functioning of the information system: the cost of coding, the cost of signaling, the cost of training to use the system, etc. Any system, by its functioning, creates various interferences, “which reduce the degree of accuracy of price signals. The latter cannot be too differentiated, since the manipulation of a very large number of signals is associated with exorbitant costs. The organization in this case allows to reduce costs by using the market less and limiting the number of signals sent and received” 40 .

The last group is behavioral costs. They are associated with "selfish behavior of agents"; a similar concept accepted and used now is “opportunistic behavior”.

The most famous domestic typology of transaction costs is the classification proposed by R. Kapelyushnikov 41 :

1. Information search costs. Before a deal is made or a contract is concluded, it is necessary to have information about where to find potential buyers and sellers of the relevant goods and factors of production, what are the current this moment prices. The costs of this kind are made up of the time and resources required to conduct the search, as well as the losses associated with the incompleteness and imperfection of the acquired information.

2. The costs of negotiating. The market requires the diversion of significant funds for negotiations on the terms of the exchange, for the conclusion and execution of contracts. The main tool for saving this kind of costs is standard (standard) contracts.

3. Measurement costs. Any product or service is a set of characteristics. In the act of exchange, only some of them are inevitably taken into account, and the accuracy of their assessment (measurement) is extremely approximate. Sometimes the qualities of a product of interest are not measurable at all, and to evaluate them one has to use surrogates (for example, to judge the taste of apples by their color). This includes the costs of the appropriate measuring equipment, the actual measurement itself, the implementation of measures designed to protect the parties from measurement errors and, finally, the losses from these errors. Measurement costs increase with increasing accuracy requirements.

Huge savings in measurement costs have been achieved by mankind as a result of the invention of standards for weights and measures. In addition, such forms of business practices as warranty repairs, company labels, purchasing batches of goods from samples, etc. are driven by the goal of saving these costs.

4. Costs of specification and protection of property rights. This category includes the costs of maintaining courts, arbitration, state bodies, the time and resources required to restore violated rights, as well as losses from their poor specification and unreliable protection. Some authors (D. North) add here the costs of maintaining a consensus ideology in society, since educating members of society in the spirit of observing generally accepted unwritten rules and ethical standards is a much more economical way to protect property rights than formalized legal control.

5. Costs of opportunistic behavior. This is the most hidden and, from the point of view of economic theory, the most interesting element of transaction costs.

There are two main forms of opportunistic behavior. The first wears Name moral hazard. Moral hazard arises when one party relies on the other in a contract, and obtaining valid information about its behavior requires high costs or is impossible at all. The most common type of opportunistic behavior of this kind is shirking, when the agent works with less output than is required of him under the contract.

Particularly favorable soil for shirking is created in the conditions of joint work by the whole group. For example, how to highlight the personal contribution of each employee to the total result of activity<команды>factory or government agency? We have to use surrogate measurements and, say, judge the productivity of many workers not by the result, but by the costs (like the duration of work), but these indicators often turn out to be inaccurate.

If the personal contribution of each agent to the overall result is measured with large errors, then his reward will be weakly related to the actual efficiency of his work. Hence the negative incentives that encourage shirking.

Special complex and expensive structures are being created in private firms and government agencies, whose tasks include monitoring the behavior of agents, detecting cases of opportunism, imposing penalties, etc. Reducing the costs of opportunistic behavior is the main function of a significant part of the administrative apparatus of various organizations.

Second form opportunistic behavior extortion. Opportunities for it appear when several production factors work in close cooperation for a long time and get used to each other so much that each becomes irreplaceable, unique for the rest of the group. This means that if some factor decides to leave the group, then the other participants in the cooperation will not be able to find an equivalent replacement for it on the market and will suffer irreparable losses. Therefore, the owners of unique (in relation to a given group of participants) resources have the opportunity for blackmail in the form of a threat to leave the group. Even when “extortion” remains only a possibility, it always comes with real losses. (The most radical form of protection against extortion is the transformation of interdependent (interspecific) resources into jointly owned property, the integration of property in the form of a single bundle of powers for all team members).

In a market economy, the company's costs can be divided into three groups: 1) transformational, 2) organizational, 3) transactional.

Transformation costs- costs of transformation of the physical properties of products in the process of using factors of production.

Organizational costs- the costs of ensuring control and distribution of resources within the organization, as well as the costs of minimizing opportunistic behavior within the organization.

Transaction and organizational costs are interrelated concepts, an increase in one leads to a decrease in the other and vice versa.

As in Commons, in the neo-institutional theory, the basic unit is an act of economic interaction, a deal, a transaction, which is an exchange of bundles of property rights. And, therefore, transaction costs (or the costs of its implementation) arise when individuals exchange property rights and cover activities related to this process. These activities include:

• searching for information about prices and quality, as well as searching for potential buyers and sellers and information about their reputation;
• trades necessary to identify the true positions of counterparties;
• supervision of contract partners and ensuring the conditions for fulfilling the terms of the contract, recovering damages if necessary;
• protection of property rights from encroachment of a third party.

And according to these types of activities accompanying the transaction, there are types (or elements) of transaction costs.

The costs of seeking information, or the costs of identifying alternatives. Under the conditions of uncertainty that exists in any real economic system, costs inevitably arise due to the search for the most favorable price and other terms of the contract. It is quite obvious that before a deal is made or a contract is concluded, it is necessary to have information about where to find potential buyers and sellers of the relevant goods and factors of production, what are the current prices, and so on. The costs of this kind are made up of the time and resources required to conduct the search, as well as the losses associated with the incompleteness and imperfection of the acquired information. As already emphasized, the uncertainty existing in the market, which gives rise to the asymmetry of information possessed by counterparties, is the most important reason for the emergence of transaction costs. Trying to equalize this asymmetry, they incur the costs of searching, accumulating and verifying information.

To minimize this kind of costs, institutions such as stock exchanges, as well as advertising or reputation, are used. Reputation as a socially significant assessment of an economic agent in terms of business ethics helps to save transaction costs. It is closely connected with the means of individualization of enterprises, in particular with trade names, trademarks. It is these tools that allow consumers to save on search costs. True, this means that the stronger the trademark is a source of information and the greater the savings in search costs, the higher, all other things being equal, the price that the seller charges can be.

As for the institution of exchanges, which are a type of organized markets, cost savings are possible due to the concentration of supply and demand in space and (or) in time. As a result, the circulation of information is accelerated and prices are more intensively equalized.

A variation of the cost of information retrieval is the cost of measurement. Costs of this kind are associated with the fact that any product or service is a complex of characteristics, and only some of them are inevitably taken into account in the act of exchange, and the accuracy of their assessment (measurement) is extremely approximate. Sometimes the qualities of a product of interest are not measurable at all, and surrogates have to be used to evaluate them. Measurement costs increase with increasing accuracy requirements. These measurements consist in determining some of the physical parameters of the exchanged rights (color, size, weight, quantity, etc.), as well as in determining property rights (rights of use, rights to receive and alienate income).

As a result, one of the most important problems of market practice is the problem of measuring the quality of goods and services. In connection with the definition of this type of transaction costs, three categories of goods are distinguished: experienced, researched, and trusted. Goods with prohibitively high costs of measuring quality before acquiring them are called experiential goods. Goods with a relatively cheap preliminary quality determination procedure are called research goods. The quality of the latter can be relatively easily assessed prior to purchase.

The quality of goods of the second type (investigated) can be established by inspection prior to purchase, while the quality of goods belonging to the first type (experimental) can be established only in the process of using this product. Note here that in markets where sellers benefit little from investment in reputation, they may lack incentives to deliver high-quality, empirically valued goods. In this case, if we are talking about the organization of the market for an experienced durable good, the set of signals is of great importance. For example, warranty after-sales service, the possibility of replacement within certain period defective goods, etc. Warranty after-sales service acts as a kind of insurance for the buyer, which assumes the transfer of risk to the seller.

As for trust goods, they are characterized by high measurement costs both before and after the purchase. This is due to the complexity of calculating the positive effect due to the complexity of assessing the result. Trusted benefits include medical and educational services, the effect of which is extended over time and is rather difficult to identify. Institutions can also be considered as trust goods, the coordination effect of which is practically unmeasurable.

The already mentioned institution of advertising is a factor that reduces not only the costs of information search, but also the transaction costs of measurement. Because, firstly, advertising provides information about the main ways to use the product. Secondly, the volume of advertising, which is related to the quality of the product being evaluated by experience, serves as a signal to the buyer about the extent of the investment made by the seller. Assuming that advertising cannot change tastes, large-scale advertising indicates the manufacturer's desire to deliver high-quality products.

Note that the last assumption is unprovable. Rather, in modern conditions, advertising is primarily aimed at changing tastes, being a tool for implementing the principle of “create demand and satisfy it”, in contrast to the principle that prevails in the conditions considered by neoclassical theory, where the behavior of producers is reduced to finding the available demand from buyers. and his satisfaction.

As representatives of traditional institutionalism, in particular, Veblen, emphasized, advertising is primarily a mechanism for exercising the power of the producer over the consumer and, to a much lesser extent, can be considered a way to reduce the costs of measurement and the costs of information search. Advertising in this capacity can be considered only if the postulate of an “economic” person is accepted, the characteristic of which is independence (unsuggestibility), i.e. accurate knowledge of the system of their true preferences. It is over such a person that advertising has no power and serves as a means of reducing the costs described above.

The institution of advertising is becoming widespread with the formation of a mass consumer society, i.e. With late XIX V. Note that in traditional societies, as in the early stage of the formation of a market economy, advertising was categorically condemned, since it was considered as a tool competition leading to the destruction of social ties and norms of economic interaction.

If you look at the problem in historical terms, then the institutional response to the costs of measurement in the first place was not advertising, but a system of measures and weights. The latter made different amounts of goods comparable, thereby greatly facilitating exchange and providing enormous savings in measurement costs. By the way, money can also be interpreted as an institutional response to the problem of barter exchange, where money acts as a generally accepted means of payment, protected either by tradition, economic custom, or by the power of the state. Here, money is a means of reducing transaction costs associated with measuring the quality of the exchanged good, as well as finding a partner who has the right product.

In addition to the costs of information retrieval and measurement costs, important element transaction costs are negotiation costs.

It is obvious that developing the terms of a contract designed to give stability to the relationship requires both time resources and distraction. significant funds to negotiate the terms of the exchange, to conclude and formalize the contracts themselves. A tool to reduce costs of this kind is the standardization of contracts, if the situations that are regulated by these contracts are typical in terms of mutual obligations of the parties. In addition, to reduce the costs of concluding a contract, a third party is used as a guarantor, which can partly compensate for the lack of mutual trust of the parties.

However, the most hidden and, from the point of view of neoinstitutional economic theory, the most interesting element of transaction costs are the so-called costs of opportunistic behavior. The term “opportunistic behavior” itself was introduced into economic theory by O. Williamson, a prominent representative of the neo-institutional trend, who interprets it as behavior that evades the terms of the contract. This includes various cases of lying, cheating, idleness at work, etc. At the same time, it is taken as an axiom that utility-maximizing individuals will always evade the terms of the contract (i.e., provide services of a smaller volume or worse quality) to the extent that this does not threaten them. economic security. Thus, the costs of opportunistic behavior are reduced to the costs that prevent this type of behavior.

Finally, transaction costs include costs of specification and protection of property rights. It has already been noted that benefits have many dimensions, including in terms of possible ways to use them, therefore, it is required certain resources for a clear definition of the object and subject of ownership. The problem of specification of property rights arises almost everywhere if the system of interaction between people about limited resources is reproduced. This includes the costs associated with protecting concluded contracts from non-performance, as well as from infringement of property rights by third parties.

At the same time, protection can be carried out both by the parties to the agreement, and by a party neutral in relation to them, acting as a fair, impartial arbitrator. As already noted, the state has moved into this role in the process of historical development. And, of course, this category of transaction costs includes the costs of maintaining courts, arbitration, and government agencies. This also includes the time and resources required to restore violated rights.

Some authors, in particular, D. North, add here the costs of maintaining a consensus ideology in society, since educating members of society in the spirit of observing generally accepted unwritten rules and ethical norms is a much more economical way to protect property rights than formalized legal control. In such a broad interpretation, this type of costs includes not only costs due to the direct protection of property rights, an essential element of which is the cost of maintaining law enforcement agencies, but partly also costs in the field of education. The latter is true to the extent that this area ensures that people are informed about existing social and legal conditions exchange and forms the behavior that determines the appropriate fulfillment of obligations.

This classification of transaction costs is the most common and applies mainly to trade transactions. This is not surprising, since within the framework of neo-institutional analysis, the voluntariness of the transaction, which is the main characteristic of trade transactions, is at the forefront.

However, there are other classifications of transaction costs. In particular, in the interpretation of O. Williamson they are divided into two groups: preliminary and final. This means the classification of transaction costs according to the criterion "stages of the transaction".

The preliminary stages of the transaction include the search for partners in the transaction and the coordination of their interests. The final stages of the transaction include the execution of the transaction and control over its implementation. The first type of costs is called "ex ante", the second - "ex post".

As a consequence, to "preliminary" transaction costs include:

• the costs of searching for information, including about a potential partner and the situation on the market, as well as losses associated with the incompleteness and imperfection of the acquired information;
• the costs of negotiating the terms of the exchange, the choice of the form of the transaction;
• costs of measuring the quality of goods and services for which a transaction is made;
• the costs of concluding a contract in the form of a legal or illegal registration of a transaction.

TO "final" costs include:

• the costs of monitoring and preventing opportunism (the costs of monitoring compliance with the terms of the transaction and avoiding these terms);
• costs of specification and protection of property rights (expenses for the maintenance of courts and arbitration; the time and resources required to restore rights violated during the execution of the contract; losses from poor specification of property rights and unreliable protection);
• costs of protection against unfounded claims from third parties, for example, mafia groups.

It is important to note that under the assumption of completeness of information, the types of activities that generate the above transaction costs would either not be needed at all, or would be cost-free. In particular, the potential opportunistic behavior of exchange partners would be known in advance, and rational individuals would not allocate resources to enforce and enforce their contractual rights.

However, in the real world, information belongs to the category of rare, limited resources, is therefore an economic good and is by no means free. It is no coincidence that one of the economists called the world with zero transaction costs as strange as the physical world without friction. It means that economic system also exists with some "friction" that complicates the implementation of economic exchanges. This is “friction” in the exchange of goods, which in neo-institutional theory is interpreted as an exchange of bundles of powers, and generates transaction costs, which are a positive value in the real economy, and quite high at that. Sometimes they can reach a level at which an exchange that is beneficial in other respects may not take place.

Thus, it is the incompleteness of information that determines the existence of transaction costs, since the latter, one way or another, are associated with the costs of obtaining information about the exchange. Figuratively speaking, transaction costs consist of those costs, the existence of which cannot be imagined in R. Crusoe's economy. That is, they represent costs above and beyond own production costs.

It is worth noting that it is precisely with the existence of completeness of information among the participants in the economic process and zero transaction costs of exchange within the framework of the market system that the optimal distribution of resources and maximum social welfare would be ensured in accordance with the Pareto optimum.

The presence of transaction costs can lead (and does lead) to a number of negative economic development consequences. As noted in the first lecture, they interfere with the process of market formation, and in some cases can completely block it, which creates obstacles to the realization of the principle of comparative advantage that underlies trade, and hence economic growth.

Also, their presence makes it difficult to find new opportunities to use known resources or discover new resources. And, as we will see later, the presence of transaction costs prevents changes in the existing rules of the game, acting as the costs of institutional transformation.

What makes it possible to reduce transaction costs? Last but not least, their ability to create economies of scale. This is due to the fact that there are constant components in all types of transaction costs: when information is collected, it can be used by any number of potential sellers and buyers; contracts are standardized; the cost of developing legislation or administrative procedures does not depend on how many persons are subject to them. And, once established, property rights can be extended almost indefinitely to other areas at little additional cost.

As a result, due to savings in transaction costs on a market scale, the per capita income of the population can increase even in the absence of technical progress due to the growing "market" economy. The latter is caused precisely by the reduction in transaction costs that accompany the exchange, and allows the benefits of the division of labor or specialization to be realized.

Returning to the first lecture, let us once again pay attention to the fact that in neo-institutional economic theory the formation of market economy institutions is considered as a process leading to a decrease in transaction costs (or exchange costs). Transaction costs are generated by the incompleteness of information, or uncertainty in the context of a mismatch of interests of economic agents interacting with each other, and therefore the set of institutions existing in society, according to representatives of the neo-institutional direction, should be analyzed from the point of view of their influence on these problems.

As we can see, transaction costs are one of the central categories of neo-institutional theory. Including them in economic analysis allows explaining almost all phenomena in terms of efficiency achieved by minimizing transaction costs. But it is worth paying attention to the fact that they are based on components invisible to the naked eye and are difficult to quantify. And at the same time, transaction costs are, within the framework of neo-institutional analysis, the key to understanding the processes taking place in the economy.

Given the importance of this category, it is not surprising that attempts have been made to develop methods for estimating transaction costs. One approach is to clearly specify the costs on a case-by-case basis. In one case, for example, these may be the costs of entering the market (registration of a company, obtaining a license), in the other, the costs associated with the conclusion and protection of contracts, etc. When broken down element by element, many components of these costs turn out to be quite measurable.

A slightly different approach is indicated by the American economists J. Wallis and D. North: the basis of the analysis is the difference they introduced between “transformational” (associated with a physical impact on an object) and transaction costs. According to them, transformation costs are the costs associated with the transformation of resources into finished products. To determine the transaction costs, the following criterion is used: from the point of view of the consumer, these costs are all his costs, the cost of which is not included in the price paid by him to the seller; from the point of view of the seller, these costs are all his costs that he would not incur if he "sold" the goods to himself.

Developing this approach, these economists tried to determine the size of the so-called transaction sector in the US economy, or specific gravity transaction costs relative to GNP and its development trends. The calculation was made on the basis of determining the total amount of resources used by firms selling transaction services, as well as measuring the resources allocated to transaction services by firms producing other goods and services.

This classification made it possible to single out a special category of firms whose activities are related to the provision of transaction services. And even if transformational costs take place within the framework of their activities, then at the level of the economy as a whole, according to the above-mentioned economists, they are still assessed as part of transaction costs. This category of firms includes intermediaries that provide pure transactional services or predominantly transactional services. Taken together, they are transactional industries. North and Wallis included groups of firms operating in the following areas:

• finance and real estate transactions. The main function of these firms is to ensure the transfer of ownership, including the search for alternatives, the preparation and implementation of transaction support;
• banking and insurance. Their main function is to mediate in the implementation of exchanges and reduce the costs associated with the security of the implementation of ownership rights to the corresponding resource;
• legal or legal services. The main function of the relevant organizations is to ensure the coordination and control of the implementation of the terms of the contracts. For example, firms hire lawyers in order to save on the costs of using the existing system of rules, since it is difficult to take into account the various regulations that constitute the institutional environment of the firm;
• wholesale and retail. Of course, it includes both transactional and transformational services, which include storage. Nevertheless, in the study of the aforementioned economists, it was treated as a transactional industry.

North and Wallis also included government services and intra-company transaction services in the transaction sector of the economy. Transaction services in the public or government sector include: national defense, police, air and water transport, financial management and general control; education, health care, highway maintenance, fire protection, etc.; other expenses (social insurance, space research, etc.).

As a result of the study, it was revealed that the growth of the transaction sector of the US economy amounted to a quarter of GNP in 1870 to a half - in 1970. At the same time, North and Wallis identified three main factors for the expansion of the transaction sector of the economy.

First of all - growth of costs of specification and protection of property rights, maintenance of contractual relations. This is not surprising since with the development market relations accompanied by an increase in specialization and urbanization, the exchange of everything in more becomes impersonal, depersonalized, which requires the widespread use of specialists in the field of law. In addition, the expansion of the sphere of exchange, increasing the range of possible alternatives, led to an increase in the costs of obtaining and processing information.

The second factor is technological changes. Capital-intensive technologies can be used profitably if a consistently high level of output can be achieved. And for this it is necessary to establish both the provision of a rhythmic, uninterrupted flow of resources and the creation of a system for managing stocks and the sale of manufactured products, as well as the creation of a system that ensures coordination and control over the actions of people within the company. Thus, these processes have led to an increase in the share of intra-company transaction services in the transformational sector of the economy.

The third factor is reducing the costs of using the political system to redistribute property rights.

In other words, the factors that caused the growth of the transaction sector, according to North and Wallis, were:

• deepening specialization and division of labor, which increased the number of transactions;
• scaling up enterprises in industry and transport;
• strengthening the role and influence of the state.

The dramatic expansion of the transaction sector, according to these economists, began in the middle of the 19th century. in connection with the development of the network railways, which paved the way for the urbanization of the population and the expansion of markets. And, as already noted, it was this process that was accompanied by the growth of impersonal exchange, which requires a detailed definition of the terms of the transaction and developed mechanisms for legal protection. At the same time, the consequences of greater product diversity and the weakening of personal contacts were expressed in the fact that economic agents increased their costs for the search and processing of market information, which led to the creation of specialized structures.

At the same time, and this should be emphasized, the share of transaction costs per transaction has significantly decreased. And it is quite convincing to assume that, ultimately, the development of the transaction sector was due precisely to the fact that the accompanying reduction in the costs per transaction opened the way for further deepening of specialization and division of labor.

In conclusion, we note that only specified transaction costs are taken into account in the study by North and Wallis. And this indirectly indicates that the accounting of transaction costs becomes possible when the transaction activity is transferred to the sphere of transaction services. In this case, it becomes possible to give them a generalized valuation. As an example, turnkey commissioning of firms, cashing out money, recruiting services. At the same time, a number of costs that should be attributed to unspecified transaction costs, such as waiting in lines and the costs of searching for goods, remained outside the field of view of researchers.

However, despite all the difficulties of their calculation, within the framework of neo-institutional analysis, transaction costs become an element of costs. economic activity along with transformational costs, which are the object of analysis in traditional neoclassical theory. Moreover, it is precisely relative differences in the levels and structure of transaction costs that representatives of neoinstitutionalism explain the whole variety of forms of economic and social life. Alternative economic institutions are said to have comparative advantages in saving on different categories of transaction costs, and their coexistence is connected precisely with this.

This approach is vividly represented both in the theory of economic organizations and in the theory of contracts, the analysis of which is devoted to the next lecture.

• One of the problems that arise here, which is called the “information paradox”, is precisely that it is quite difficult to give a preliminary assessment of the significance of the information received. There are other approaches, and if we take the area in which transaction costs arise as a criterion, then we can single out: market transaction costs - for the search and processing of information related to negotiation, decision-making and control over their implementation; management transaction costs - the costs of developing, implementing and maintaining organizational structure; political transaction costs - the costs of creating, maintaining and changing the legislative system, legal proceedings, defense, education, etc.
• As has been noted more than once, the prerequisite for the completeness of information (within the framework of the adoption of the model of the "economic" person) is one of the basic ones in neoclassical models. In addition, any exchange is considered in them as a one-time exchange of rights, the good is researched, the firm is a monolith that excludes the existence of conflicting interests in it, i. the absence of opportunistic behavior is assumed.
• And from the same positions the criterion of their effectiveness is put forward. It has been repeatedly noted that such an approach is rooted in a value orientation that assumes that the goal of economic development is to increase the wealth of the nation, expressed in the totality of goods and services produced.
• For example, when buying a house, the buyer's transaction costs will include the money spent on hiring a lawyer, spending time inspecting the house, and collecting price information for similar products. For the seller, these costs will consist of advertising costs, hiring a real estate agent, time spent showing the house, and so on.
• To quantify the transactional sector within the firm, North and Wallis proposed to single out professions that are directly related to the performance of transactional functions (these include activities related to: the acquisition of resources; the distribution of the product; coordination and control over the performance of transformational functions); and the value of transaction costs to be determined through the calculation wages employed in the intra-company transaction sector.

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Now we can move on to the task of classifying transaction costs. It is most reasonable to link the classification of transaction costs to the stages of the transaction. O. Williamson speaks of transaction costs ex ante and ex post, that is, those that arise before and after the conclusion of a transaction. If we single out the following as the stages of concluding a deal: finding a partner, coordinating interests, formalizing a deal, monitoring its implementation, then the classification of transaction costs can be presented in the form of a table.

Costs ex ante	Costsex post
Information Search Costs include the search for information about a potential partner and the situation on the market, as well as losses associated with the incompleteness and imperfection of the acquired information	Costs of monitoring and preventing opportunism relate to the costs of monitoring compliance with the terms of the transaction and preventing opportunism, i.e. avoiding these conditions
The cost of negotiating include the costs of negotiating the terms of the exchange, the choice of the form of the transaction	Cost of specification and protection of property rights include the costs of courts, arbitration, the time and resources required to restore rights violated during the performance of the contract, as well as losses from poor specification of property rights and unreliable protection
Measurement costs relate to costs Necessary to measure the quality of goods and services for which a transaction is made	Third Party Protection Costs include the cost of defending against claims of third parties (state, mafia, etc.) for a part of the beneficial effect obtained as a result of the transaction
Contract costs reflect the costs of legal or illegal registration of the transaction

Building a classification of transaction costs based on the stages of concluding a contract makes it possible to clarify the question of their quantitative assessment both at the microeconomic and macroeconomic levels. For example, when concluding a transaction for renting an apartment, which involves the transfer by the owner of the apartment to the tenant of the right to use it.

The transaction costs for the tenant will take the following forms:

The costs of searching for information about rented apartments, about prices on the housing market: buying specialized publications and calling ads or contacting a real estate company that independently selects several options for a commission - costs in monetary form and time costs.
The costs of negotiating with the owners of the apartments selected based on the results of the first stage special conditions rent - the cost of time, can be shifted to an intermediary and in this case take the form of money.

The costs of assessing the quality of housing during a visit to the selected apartments - time and transport costs can also be passed on to the intermediary.
Costs legal registration employment contract, its notarization - costs in cash.
The costs of preventing owner opportunism, which is expressed in the desire to change the terms of the lease, for example, to increase the rent, are time-consuming, psychological costs.
The costs of protecting the right to use the apartment transferred for the duration of the contract in the event that the owner makes claims to the tenant regarding the maintenance of the apartment and / or wants to terminate the contract ahead of schedule - the time and money costs associated with going to court.

Thus, the transaction costs associated with rental housing can be quantified either by analyzing the income of intermediary firms, or by summing direct cash costs and time costs multiplied by the average hourly