IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/halshs-00270895.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Que reste-t-il de la contribution d'Alchian et Demsetz à la théorie de l'entreprise ?

Author

Listed:
  • Bruno Tinel

    (MATISSE - UMR 8595 - Modélisation Appliquée, Trajectoires Institutionnelles et Stratégies Socio-Économiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

What does remain from Alchian and Demsetz' contribution to the theory of the firm ? This paper appraises, from the point of view of the history of economic thought, Alchian and Demsetz' contribution on the theory of the firm. This celebrated contribution can be considered partly as a reply to the "radical challenge" which occured at the end of the 1960's. In spite of numerous quotations of Alchian and Demsetz' paper, its real content has hardly been resumed, probably because of its internal limits and its too narrow focus. Finally, only the short passage on the specificity of the employment relationship will come down to posterity in the discussions concerning the sources of authority.

Suggested Citation

  • Bruno Tinel, 2004. "Que reste-t-il de la contribution d'Alchian et Demsetz à la théorie de l'entreprise ?," Post-Print halshs-00270895, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00270895
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00270895
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00270895/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alchian, Armen A & Demsetz, Harold, 1972. "Production , Information Costs, and Economic Organization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(5), pages 777-795, December.
    2. Michael L. Wachter, 1974. "Primary and Secondary Labor Markets: A Critique of the Dual Approach," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 5(3), pages 637-694.
    3. Bowles, Samuel & Gintis, Herbert, 1975. "The Problem with Human Capital Theory-A Marxian Critique," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(2), pages 74-82, May.
    4. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    5. Vietorisz, Thomas & Harrison, Bennett, 1973. "Labor Market Segmentation: Positive Feedback and Divergent Development," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(2), pages 366-376, May.
    6. R. H. Coase, 2013. "The Problem of Social Cost," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(4), pages 837-877.
    7. Pejovich, Svetozar, 1969. "Liberman's Reforms and Property Rights in the Soviet Union," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(1), pages 155-162, April.
    8. H. Scott Gordon, 1954. "The Economic Theory of a Common-Property Resource: The Fishery," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Chennat Gopalakrishnan (ed.), Classic Papers in Natural Resource Economics, chapter 9, pages 178-203, Palgrave Macmillan.
    9. Holmstrom, Bengt R. & Tirole, Jean, 1989. "The theory of the firm," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 61-133, Elsevier.
    10. G. L. Bach, 1972. "Symposium: Economics of the New Left: Comment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 86(4), pages 632-643.
    11. Cheung, Steven N S, 1983. "The Contractual Nature of the Firm," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(1), pages 1-21, April.
    12. Goldberg, Victor P., 1980. "Bridges over contested terrain : Exploring the radical account of the employment relationship," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 249-274, September.
    13. Landes, David S., 1986. "What Do Bosses Really Do?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(3), pages 585-623, September.
    14. Oliver E. Williamson, 1993. "Contested Exchange versus the Governance of Contractual Relations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 103-108, Winter.
    15. Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, 1998. "Power in a Theory of the Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(2), pages 387-432.
    16. Harold Demsetz, 1968. "The Cost of Transacting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 82(1), pages 33-53.
    17. Reich, Michael & Gordon, David M & Edwards, Richard C, 1973. "A Theory of Labor Market Segmentation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(2), pages 359-365, May.
    18. Cheung, Steven N S, 1969. "Transaction Costs, Risk Aversion, and the Choice of Contractual Arrangements," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(1), pages 23-42, April.
    19. Bowles, Samuel, 1974. "Economists as Servants of Power," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(2), pages 129-132, May.
    20. Patrick Bolton & David S. Scharfstein, 1998. "Corporate Finance, the Theory of the Firm, and Organizations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 95-114, Fall.
    21. Bowles, Samuel, 1973. "Understanding Unequal Economic Opportunity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(2), pages 346-356, May.
    22. Demsetz, Harold, 1969. "Information and Efficiency: Another Viewpoint," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(1), pages 1-22, April.
    23. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1993. "Post Walrasian and Post Marxian Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 109-114, Winter.
    24. Cain, Glen G, 1976. "The Challenge of Segmented Labor Market Theories to Orthodox Theory: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 1215-1257, December.
    25. Edwards, Richard C & MacEwan, Arthur, 1970. "A Radical Approach to Economics: Basis for a New Curriculum," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 60(2), pages 352-363, May.
    26. Cain, Glen G, 1975. "The Challenge of Dual and Radical Theories of the Labor Market to Orthodox Theory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(2), pages 16-22, May.
    27. Gintis, Herbert, 1971. "Education, Technology, and the Characteristics of Worker Productivity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(2), pages 266-279, May.
    28. Furubotn, Eirik G & Pejovich, Svetozar, 1972. "Property Rights and Economic Theory: A Survey of Recent Literature," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 1137-1162, December.
    29. N/A, 1974. "The Origins of Job Structures in the Steel Industry," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 6(2), pages 113-173, July.
    30. Oliver E. Williamson & Michael L. Wachter & Jeffrey E. Harris, 1975. "Understanding the Employment Relation: The Analysis of Idiosyncratic Exchange," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 6(1), pages 250-278, Spring.
    31. Bronfenbrenner, Martin, 1970. "Radical Economics in America: A 1970 Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 747-766, September.
    32. R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), 1989. "Handbook of Industrial Organization," Handbook of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 2.
    33. H. Scott Gordon, 1954. "The Economic Theory of a Common-Property Resource: The Fishery," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 62(2), pages 124-124.
    34. Hess, James D., 1983. "The Economics of Organization," Elsevier Monographs, Elsevier, edition 1, number 9780444865892 edited by Bliss, C.J. & Intriligator, M.D..
    35. Raymond S. Franklin & William K. Tabb, 1974. "The Challenge of Radical Political Economics," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1), pages 127-150, March.
    36. R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), 1989. "Handbook of Industrial Organization," Handbook of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jongwook Kim & Joseph T. Mahoney, 2002. "Resource-based and property rights perspectives on value creation: the case of oil field unitization," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(4-5), pages 225-245.
    2. Gibbons, Robert, 2005. "Four forma(lizable) theories of the firm?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 200-245, October.
    3. Kim, Jongwook & Mahoney, Joseph T., 2008. "A Strategic Theory of the Firm as a Nexus of Incomplete Contracts: A Property Rights Approach," Working Papers 08-0108, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    4. Argandoña, Antonio, 2010. "From action theory to the theory of the firm," IESE Research Papers D/855, IESE Business School.
    5. Kirsten Foss & Nicolai Foss, 2001. "Assets, Attributes and Ownership," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1), pages 19-37.
    6. Hamed Tajedin & Hamed Tajedin & Mohammad Keyhani, 2019. "A Theory of Digital Firm-Designed Markets: Defying Knowledge Constraints with Crowds and Marketplaces," Strategy Science, INFORMS, vol. 4(4), pages 323-342, December.
    7. Safarzynska, Karolina & van den Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M., 2010. "Evolving power and environmental policy: Explaining institutional change with group selection," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(4), pages 743-752, February.
    8. Kim, Jongwook & Mahoney, Joseph T., 2005. "Appropriating Economic Rents from Resources: An Integrative Property Rights and Resource-Based Approach," Working Papers 05-0123, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    9. Steven G. Medema, 2020. "The Coase Theorem at Sixty," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(4), pages 1045-1128, December.
    10. Eitan Goldman & Gary Gorton, 2000. "The Visible Hand, the Invisible Hand and Efficiency," NBER Working Papers 7587, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Russell Smyth & Dic Lo, 2000. "Theories of the Firm and the Relationship between Different Perspectives on the Division of Labour," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(3), pages 333-349.
    12. Weiß, Christian, 2010. "The Ownership Concentration of Firms: Three Essays on the Determinants and Effects," EconStor Theses, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 30247, March.
    13. repec:eee:labchp:v:2:y:1986:i:c:p:1183-1217 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Baker, George P. & Gibbons, Robert & Murphy, Kevin J., 2008. "Strategic alliances: Bridges between "islands of conscious power"," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 146-163, June.
    15. Kamath Shyam J., 1994. "Privatization: A Market Prospect Perspective," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 53-104, March.
    16. Peter Drysdale, 1995. "The Question of Access to the Japanese Market," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 71(3), pages 271-283, September.
    17. Alvarez, Sharon A. & Barney, Jay B., 2004. "Organizing rent generation and appropriation: toward a theory of the entrepreneurial firm," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 621-635, September.
    18. Todorova, Tamara, 2022. "Оливър Уилямсън: Новатор На 20 Век И Основател На Новата Институционална Икономика [Oliver Williamson: an innovator of the 20th century and founder of the new institutional economics]," MPRA Paper 121077, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Dew, Nicholas & Velamuri, S. Ramakrishna & Venkataraman, Sankaran, 2004. "Dispersed knowledge and an entrepreneurial theory of the firm," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 659-679, September.
    20. Holderness, Clifford G., 2003. "Joint ownership and alienability," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 75-100, March.
    21. Emiliano Carlo, 2014. "Pyramids and the separation between direction and control of non-financial Italian family companies," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 18(3), pages 835-872, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00270895. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.