Transaction Efficiency, Economic Operation Cost And Economic Development--the Case Study On Hunan Province

Based on transaction cost economics, this paper is aiming at taking empirical research on measuring the real transaction cost, economic operation cost and hence the relationship between transaction cost and economic development in Hunan province. Since the two pieces of classic papers by Coase are published, the concept of transaction cost has been widely used to analyze various types of economic issues and phenomenon. However, the key problem is that few papers focus on measuring transaction cost in the real economic world, since only qualitative analysis is made in most of these papers, and therefore, the paper attempts to measure transaction cost, economic operation cost and hence the relationship between transaction cost and economic development in Hunan province by using the economic data of Hunan province. The whole paper includes five parts. The first part is introduction to the background of my research work and also the research methods and possible research outcomes and innovations in this paper, in the second part, a literature review on transaction cost economics is presented, which provides a foundation for choosing the indicators of transaction cost in our empirical study. In the third part, the sample data of Hunan province during the period of 1990-2002 are utilized to measure the real transaction cost in Hunan province, which is indexed by the number of transaction workers in various sectors. The relationship between transaction cost and Hunan's economic growth is also investigated in this part by taking correlation analysis, regression analysis as well as Granger causality test. In the forth part, based on the survey data of 150 firms in Hunan provinces, 17 indicators are established to make a comprehensive measure of economic operation cost in Hunan province, and then the research result is also compared with that of four other provinces, including Guangdong, Guangxi, Hubei and Jiangxi provinces. Finally, conclusion and future research field are both presented in the fifth part.