Acondicionamiento del sistema de tratamiento de las aguas miel en la finca

Transaction cost economics concurs with John R. Commons, who stated that ‘the ultimate unit of activity must contain in itself the three principles of conflict, mutuality and order. This unit is a transaction.’ (Commons, 1932: 4). The transaction is the basic unit of analysis in transaction cost economics. A transaction occurs ‘when a good or service is transferred across a technologically separable interface. One stage of activity terminates and another one begins’ (Williamson, 1985: 1). Three main attributes of the transaction have been identified, including the uncertainty to which the transaction is subject, the frequency with which the transaction recurs, and the asset-specificity of the transaction.

2.1.1 Transaction attributes

Uncertainty refers to the unanticipated disturbances that affect transactions. Disturbances have different origins; transaction cost economics focuses on uncertainty that is attributable to opportunism. This type of uncertainty, referred to as behavioral uncertainty, arises as a result of ‘strategic nondisclosure, disguise or distortion of information’ (Williamson, 1985: 56) by the contracting parties.

Frequency plays a relatively minor role in characterizing transactions in Williamson’s transaction cost economics (Rindfleish and Heide, 1997). Three frequency classes are identified for transactions: one-time, occasional and recurrent (Williamson, 1985: 72). Frequency has been argued to be relevant with respect to reputation effects and governance costs. When the frequency of transactions increases from one-time to recurrent, the reputation of contracting parties on previous transactions starts to matter. And when transactions are of a recurring kind, they allow for an easier recovery of costs for specialized governance structures (Williamson, 1985: 60).

Asset-specificity plays a central role in transaction cost economics; it is the source of many refutable hypotheses, and the focus of the majority of the empirical work (Macher and Richman, 2006: 5; David and Han, 2004: 52). Asset-specificity refers to ‘the degree to which an asset can be redeployed to alternative uses and by alternative users without sacrifice of productive value’ (Williamson, 1996a: 59). It ranges from generic, non-specialized assets to highly idiosyncratic assets. Generic, non-specialized assets can be easily transferred to other transactions and alternative uses without great costs. Investments into idiosyncratic assets are made specifically to enable a particular transaction. These assets, which are specific to a transaction, are put to alternative uses only at a great loss of economic value. Asset-specificity can be traced to investments that are made immediately upon signing a contract, ‘but asset- specificity also evolves during contract implementation’ (Williamson, 2005b: 7). In ‘The economic institutions of capitalism’ (1985), Williamson identifies four types of asset- specificity: (1) site-specificity, in which successive plants are located in close proximity to one another so as to economize on inventory and transportation expenses; (2) physical asset- specificity, where inputs are specialized to the production of a particular component or a product; (3) human asset-specificity that arises in a learning-by-doing fashion; and (4) dedicated assets, which represent a discrete investment in generalized (as contrasted with special purpose) production capacity that would not be made but for the prospect of selling a significant amount of product to a specific customer. In ‘The mechanisms of governance’ (Williamson, 1996a), (5) brand name capital (an investment in reputation (Williamson, 1988: 359)) and (6) temporal specificity have been added (Williamson, 1996a: 60, 106) to the types of asset-specificity that are mentioned in ‘The economic institutions of capitalism’. Temporal specificity is ‘a type of site-specificity in which timely responsiveness by on-site human assets is vital’ (Williamson, 1996a: 106).

2.1.2 Transaction costs

There are costs involved in transacting, in transferring goods and services from one stage of activity to another. Transaction costs are often described as ‘the costs of running the economic

system’ (Arrow, 1969: 48). They include the costs of bargaining, drafting, negotiating and safeguarding an agreement. These are referred to as ex ante transaction costs; they are incurred before the intended transaction takes place. In addition, transaction costs include costs of planning and monitoring task completion. And finally, there are ex post transaction costs, such as costs for enforcing and policing an agreement, and misalignment costs. Transactions can become maladapted to the structures that govern them, because of the unanticipated disturbances to which transactions are subject. This misalignment3 creates various ex post transaction costs, including (1) the maladaptation costs; (2) the haggling costs incurred if bilateral efforts are made to correct ex post misalignments; (3) the setup and running costs associated with the governance structures to which disputes are referred; and (4) the bonding costs of effecting secure commitments (Williamson, 1985: 21).

The empirical research in transaction cost economics almost never measures transaction costs directly4, because these costs are often difficult to quantify (Williamson, 1985: 22). Buckley and Chapman (1997) claim that these costs are often outside the domain of quantification altogether (Buckley and Chapman, 1997: 137). Williamson offered a solution to these difficulties by referring to the comparative nature of transaction cost economics: the magnitude of transaction costs does not need to be measured in an absolute sense, but can be assessed by comparing costs under different modes of governance (Williamson, 1985: 22; Williamson, 1996a: 5). However, when comparing transaction costs under different modes of governance, these costs still need to be quantified in order to allow for a comparison. One central assumption of transaction cost economics reduces the need for empirical research to focus on the measurement of transaction costs: TCE assumes that economic actors minimize transaction costs, and that they aim for such a minimization through the efficient alignment of transactions

3

The misalignment of transactions and governance structures is discussed in detail in section 2.3.

4

There are some exceptions; for example, Wallis and North (1986) calculated that the amount of transaction costs in the United States had grown from 25 per cent of GNP in 1870 to 45 per cent of GNP in 1970. Transaction costs were measured by ‘adding all the resources used in the transaction industries (wholesale and retail trade; and finance, insurance and real estate) and the wages paid to employees in transaction-related occupations (e.g. managers, supervisors, clerical workers) in all other industries’ (Wallis and North, 1988).

with governance structures. TCE formulates hypotheses on this efficient matching of transactions with governance structures, and most empirical studies within TCE are therefore focused on testing these hypotheses.