Austrian Theory of the Firm Seminar (Session II)

Aletse López  | 23 de enero de 2019  | Vistas: 28

The Austrian Theory of Firm Seminar lead by the economist and professor Peter Klein is a group discussion of the benefits and costs of firms, their role in markets and the perspectives of different authors about this type of organization in free markets.

In this session, Klein discusses Oliver E. Williamson approach to the Transaction Cost Theory, firm boundaries, opportunism, incomplete contracts, asset specificity, and the similar problem large firms could suffer just like a socialist planner, which Ludwig von Mises presented as the lack of rational economic planning.

Specialized investments that are particular to an exchange relationship generate potential value that the parties might have to argue about”.

During the conversation, Klein talks about the phenomenon of rents which is not the payment for a service, but the payment to a factor of production beyond what is necessary to attract that factor to that activity and quasi rents, which is any payment greater than a rent to a factor of production to prevent it from leaving.

Lastly, Klein discusses the possible vertical integration in large firms and with different enterprises, in order to avoid exposed opportunism, which is a behavior in economics of self-interest seeking with guile.

Watch the entire collection!