The Williamsonian Ambiguity on Authority and Power in Transaction Cost Economics

Bernard Baudry and Virgile Chassagnon

Journal of Economic Issues, 2019, vol. 53, issue 1, 257-276

Abstract: Power has traditionally been rejected from economics and more particularly from the economics of the firm. Although he proposes building an interdisciplinary approach to the firm, Williamson rejects power from the economics of transaction costs. However, regarding the theoretical and behavioral hypotheses he makes, we can raise the following question: does the Williamsonian approach to the firm have intrinsic properties for developing a theory of power? After analyzing Williamson’s argument on power/authority, this paper aims to shed light on the fact that the 2009 Nobel Prize winner has built a theory based on power that he rejects due to a questionable methodological choice. Conversely, we defend the thesis according to which power cannot be removed from the economics of the firm and transaction cost economics–at the risk of providing a distorted picture of the reality of capitalism.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00213624.2019.1573094 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: The Williamsonian ambiguity on authority and power in transaction cost economics (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mes:jeciss:v:53:y:2019:i:1:p:257-276

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/MJEI20

DOI: 10.1080/00213624.2019.1573094

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Economic Issues from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().