The Perception and Measurement of Transaction Costs

Peter J Buckley and Malcolm Chapman

Cambridge Journal of Economics, 1997, vol. 21, issue 2, 127-45

Abstract: This paper discusses various explanations of how transaction cost-minimizing corporate configurations come about. It contrasts Darwinian with rational explanations, finding both unsatisfactory. What matters, rather than computation of fully recognized transaction costs, are managerial perceptions of transaction costs. These perceptions are not expressed in numbers but in language. This is related to arguments derived from bounded rationality and from transaction cost economics. The paper argues that issues of managerial perception must become central to analysis. Existing academic traditions which accord primacy to perception and to language are drawn upon and argued to be of great relevance to future work. Copyright 1997 by Oxford University Press.

Date: 1997
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