The Coasian market-firm dichotomy and subcontracting in the construction industry

Lawrence Wai Chung Lai

Construction Management and Economics, 2000, vol. 18, issue 3, 355-362

Abstract: This is a contribution to the debate on the contractual nature of subcontracting in the construction industry by arguing, contrary to certain views in the literature on institutional and construction economics, that the Coasian firm-market dichotomy is not blurred or pointless. By reference to the type and number of contracts, the study offers a way to distinguish the firm from the market as well as the precise nature of subcontracting in terms of such distinction. Subcontracting is shown to be a nexus of Coasian firms interacting through the main contractor with a monopsony consumer in a Coasian market.

Keywords: Transaction Costs Ambiguity Of The Firm Subcontracting Coasian Firm Coasian Market (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/014461900370717 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
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:taf:conmgt:v:18:y:2000:i:3:p:355-362

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RCME20

DOI: 10.1080/014461900370717

Access Statistics for this article

Construction Management and Economics is currently edited by Will Hughes

More articles in Construction Management and Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().