Research On Measureing Method Of National Economy Transaction Cost

The empirical research on transactions costs is the base and prerequisite of the consolidation and development of new institutional economics. Currently, transactions costs measurement has been worked up and gained plentiful achievements in other countries. Seeing that this research field is in the beginning phase of research in our country, this thesis systematically and thoroughly researches, theoretically analyzes and generally evaluates the approach to transactions costs measurement in macroscopic field, and provides my personal opinion on its future development. The main contents of this thesis are as below:I. Generalizing the Transaction Industry Approach .The transaction industry approach was firstly created and used for American macroscopic transactions costs measurement by Wallis and North (1986). They creatively compartmentalized human economic activities into transactions activities and transformation activities, and divided the cost into transformation costs and transactions costs. The core of transaction industry approach is to replace the transactions costs by the transactions measurement industry so as to blaze the way for the national economic transactions costs measurement. The so-called transaction industry namely means the industry that provides transaction services. The transaction services namely mean the part of transaction costs resulted in market exchange. The part of transaction costs that don’t enter into the market and cannot be observed should not be included in the range of measurement. Such approach has been used by a good many countries. The conclusion of the transaction industry approach is that, the more proportion the transactions costs occupy in the GNP, the more developed the country is, the larger the numerical value is.II Generalizing Transactions Price Index Approach.Transactions price index approach(American Eigen-Zucchi,2001), is also called as Transactions Efficiency Index Approach (Taiwan, Zhong Guofu 2003), Which is to constitute a branch of indexes of transactions price from the main variables of transactions costs adopting the advanced econometrics method, basing on the transaction cost approach of New Institutional Economics, which will be finally quantized as index values. In order to measure the level of transactions price index inside a country, firstly, we must find out the important aspects that influence the transaction: Generally it includes direct transactions costs that directly reflect the market, government, communication, and education, etc. important aspects, while these aspects cover numerous factors, we need to extract the index that can represent the transactions efficiency level of a country or a region, hereby we borrow the advanced tools of Quantitative Analysis, such as factors analysis or principal components analysis, to constitute an index that may represent the general transactions price index of the economy from various indexes such as relevant government policy, regulations, anti-corruption, communication and traffic, basic facilities, education level, inflation rate, tariff, etc. and then work out the index. The transactions price index considers that the more advance a country is, the higher the transactions efficiency it has, and the smaller the unit transactions costs is.III Theoretic Analysis on Transactions Costs.Examining the correctness of the conclusion from the measurement method is always the first breakthrough point in researching and analyzing such method. Carrying out microscopic analysis on experimental research on transactions costs through price elasticity, income elasticity, cross elasticity theory on customers and the theory on the firm, and seeing from the macro analysis on the policy and technology, there’s no reason to be surprised about the continuous increase of the quota of transaction services in national economy and the continuous improvement of transactions efficiency in advanced countries. The theory and experience have a uniform relationship, both approaches themselves must receive the test of reproduction and application process, also undergo the test of theoretical analysis and objective fact.IV Evaluation on the Measurement of Transactions Costs of National Economy.Through the research with comparison method, the method of statistical analysis and the method of marginal analysis, cost-income of the mainstream of economics, we consider that the transactions industry method and the transactions price method have respectively measured the transactions costs of national economy from different angles. What the former one measures is the gross transactions costs, and the latter one is unit transaction cost. These two methods complement each other, and the results are the same through statistic test on the conclusion obtained. Moreover, the domestic and international academic circles have not reached an agreement on the measurement of transactions costs, the exploration and arguments are still unceasing. The main problems needed to be solved which are confronted by all the measurement method of national economic transactions costs are the definition of transactions costs, the contradiction between conception and measurement, numerical data and specific method, etc.IV Prospect .People will reach an agreement on the concept of transactions costs through the gradual clarification of the following questions: The first, the relationship among transactions costs and traditional production costs & opportunity cost; the second, the relationship between transactions costs and business organizations’costs; The Third, the relationship between transactions costs and policies & technologies. To reform the existing system of statistics and national account system is a natural tendency. The statistical work and classification of data is easily available because the transactions costs are paid much attention to. The research on the problem of modeling the transactions costs will have further progress, but these models will be unsatisfied on the preliminary stage. Only through combined efforts of new institutional economists and the builders of models, could we gain some progress. The measurement on the non-market transactions costs will constitute an important challenge to the transactions costs economics; the microeconomic fundamental research of macroscopic measurement will be enhanced further; combining the effort of theoretic researchers and practical workers to carry out integrated research on all kinds of interdisciplines is a breakthrough for the continuous exploration on quantizing the transactions costs. To extract and develop theories on the basis of new experimental findings, hereby to develop more valuable experimental research, and to promote the theory and experience mutually is an important premise to push forward the continuous progress of transactions costs economics.