企业能力理论对契约理论的批判和超越

现代企业理论在其发展过程中逐渐演变为两个大的流派，即企业的契约理论和企业的能力理论。企业契约理论由于对有限理性和机会主义假设处理不充分以及忽视创新、学习和知识的性质而存有很大的局限性，企业能力理论对企业存在、边界和治理结构设计提供了一种新视角。     

企业技术能力:超越技术创新研究的新范式

技术能力的研究在国际经济，管理学者中日益受到重视，并逐渐构建了以技术能力的研究范式替代，补充技术创新这一泛化的研究框架。尤为重要的是，技术能力的研究可指明我国企业技术学习行为方向并深刻揭示技术追赶的内在机理，从而为我国整体产业的技术能力跃迁提供坚实的微观基础。     

交易成本范式与新古典增长理论范式:方法论角度的思考

经济增长和制度问题是经济学中两大最具有现实意义的问题,它们在新古典经济学内部都经历了从消失到复兴的过程。从方法论角度这并非偶然,不过在新古典经济学内部成长起来的新古典增长理论范式和交易成本范式,到底能够在多大程度上加深我们对经济增长和制度问题的认识,这并非不存在疑问。因为,它们最为核心的理论论断都是从与新古典理论相容的命题出发进行逻辑推演得到的,有关论断虽然具有逻辑上的真理性,但与真实世界之间存在着不可逾越的鸿沟,而这样的鸿沟是不可能借助于新古典理论的工具箱来填补的。     

从新古典厂商理论到现代企业理论：制度内化与范式转换

从新古典厂商理论到后现代企业理论,已经形成了一个相对完整的企业理论体系。作为一门前沿学科,企业理论的核心进步在于以制度内化为代表的研究对象扩展化,这使得现代企业理论思想的火花再次耀眼;以范式转换为方向的研究方法的创新化,将使思想的火花结出新理论的果实。     

超越契约理论--演化论视角的企业理论研究

企业的契约理论围绕交易成本概念解释了企业的存在、边界和内部组织,但严重忽视了企业的技术和生产功能,演化经济学的企业理论通过研究企业内知识的产生、传播和利用过程,以及组织与个人的交互学习,不仅重新解释了企业的存在、边界和内部组织问题,还研究了契约理论未触及的企业异质性、竞争优势和企业家等问题.     

行为激励契约理论的兴起

实验经济学家谨慎地提出了简约效用函数和社会偏好模型。而行为经济学家把他们提出社会效用函数和模型融入激励契约理论分析中,极大地改变激励契约分析方法和原有结论,促进了一种分析问题新范式——行为激励契约理论的兴起。论文沿着该思路就自私自利假设实验研究、社会效用函数发展及它与激励契约融合发展方面进行了系统综述,以便推进社会偏好理论进一步发展,更好地与激励理论相融合。     

演化经济学对新古典经济学的超越及其理论框架的形成

演化经济学在批判新古典经济学的基础上不断发展和完善自己的理论框架,跨越了主流经济学理性人、最优、均衡的藩篱,提出历史演化、满意、多样性假说,并借用生物学基因的遗传机制、变异机制、选择机制的运作,为解释经济系统演化过程提供了一个动态变化的研究框架,使经济学面临着更大的革命.     

可持续发展模式的兴起与经济学理论范式的转变

自20世纪60年代开始,经济学家开始对传统的经济增长模式进行反思,新的可持续发展模式逐渐兴起。可持续发展模式并不反对经济增长,但认为经济增长必须限制在自然资本可持续性的前提下,实现经济与环境的协调发展。可持续发展的新模式要求经济学理论范式的转变,进行经济学理论的革命转变经济行为,改革经济政策,修正GNP,创立新的经济学理论范式,为协调环境与发展提供新的工具。     

分工、协作与古典企业理论的再造

现代企业理论自创立以来,一直都未能摆脱新古典思想的束缚,从而降低了它的解释力。本文将古典经济学关于分工与协作的思想应用于对企业的解释,并得出以下结论:分工不仅要受到市场容量的限制,更重要的是,还要受市场不确定性的限制,企业内分工协作与市场分工协作的差异才是企业利润的真正来源。企业的性质可以概括为:企业是追求分工经济与协作经济的要素所有者结合的产物。降低交易成本是企业出现后的结果,而不是企业出现的原因;当在企业内组织生产的边际利润等于在市场内组织生产的边际利润时,企业便会停止扩张。     

A theory of firm decline

We study the problem of an investor that buys an equity stake in an entrepreneurial venture, under the assumption that the former cannot monitor the latter's operations. The dynamics implied by the optimal incentive scheme is rich and quite different from that induced by other models of repeated moral hazard. In particular, our framework generates a rationale for firm decline. As young firms accumulate capital, the claims of both investor (outside equity) and entrepreneur (inside equity) increase. At some juncture, however, even as the latter continues to grow, invested capital and firm value start declining and so does the value of outside equity. The reason is that incentive provision is costlier the wealthier the entrepreneur (the greater is inside equity). In turn, this leads to a decline in the constrained-efficient level of effort and therefore to a drop in the return to investment.     

A bargaining theory of the firm

Suppose that a firm has several owners and that the future is uncertain in the sense that one out of many different states of nature will realize tomorrow. An owner’s time preference and risk attitude will determine the importance he places on payoffs in the different states. It is a well-known problem in the literature that under incomplete asset markets, a conflict about the firm’s objective function tends to arise among its owners. In this paper, we take a new approach to this problem, which is based on non-cooperative bargaining. The owners of the firm play a bargaining game in order to choose the firm’s production plan and a scheme of transfers which are payable before the uncertainty about the future state of nature is resolved. We analyze the resulting firm decision in the limit of subgame-perfect equilibria in stationary strategies. Given the distribution of bargaining power, we obtain a unique prediction for a production plan and a transfer scheme. When markets are complete, the production plan chosen corresponds to the profit-maximizing production plan as in the Arrow–Debreu model. Contrary to that model, owners typically do use transfers to redistribute profits. When markets are incomplete, the production plan chosen is almost always different from the one in a transfer-free Drèze (pseudo-)equilibrium and again owners use transfers to redistribute profits. Nevertheless, our results do support the Drèze criterion as the appropriate objective function of the firm.     

Regret theory and the competitive firm

This paper examines the production decision of the competitive firm under uncertainty when the firm is not only risk averse but also regret averse. Regret-averse preferences are characterized by a modified utility function that includes disutility from having chosen ex-post suboptimal alternatives. The extent of regret depends on the difference between the actual profit and the maximum profit attained by making the optimal production decision had the firm observed the true realization of the random output price. If the firm is not too regret averse, we show that the conventional result that the optimal output level under uncertainty is less than that under certainty holds. Using a simple binary model wherein the random output price can take on either a low value or a high value with positive probability, we show the possibility that the firm may optimally produce more, not less, under uncertainty than under certainty, particularly when the firm is sufficiently regret averse and the low output price is very likely to prevail.     

On the opportunism-independent theory of the firm

Previous developments in the opportunism-independent theoryof the firm are either restricted to special cases or are derivedfrom the capabilities or resource-based perspective. However,a more general opportunism-independent approach can be developed,based on the work of Demsetz and Coase, which is neverthelesscontractual in nature. This depends on ‘direction’,that is, deriving economic value by permitting one set of actorsto direct the activities of another, and of non-human factorsof production. Direction helps to explain not only firm boundariesand organisation, but also the existence of firms, without appealingto opportunism or moral hazard. The paper also considers theextent to which it is meaningful to speak of ‘contractual’theories in the absence of opportunism, and whether this analysiscan be extended beyond the employment contract to encompassownership of assets by the firm.     

The Austrian theory of the cooperative firm

This paper draws on Wicksell's Value, Capital and Rent. The (comparative-statics) response of the cooperative to a change in its parameters (capital stock, rate of interest paid on capital stock, and production function) is examined. Severe employment problems may be expected if, in a cooperative setting, the rate of interest is, by macroeconomic management, kept at a relatively low level. Technological progress also may lead to a contraction in employment and even, under some circumstances, cause a decline in output per man. The cooperative is throughout contrasted with its capitalist counterpart.     

Consistent firm choice and the theory of supply

Summary. This paper analyzes the problem of deriving predictions, regarding supply behavior of a competitive firm, from prior consistency postulates about input-output choices made by such a firm. It extends the literature by introducing a consistency postulate for firm choice, which is weaker than profit-maximization. This consistency postulate is nevertheless both necessary and sufficient for supply responses predicted by the standard theory of firm choice based on the postulate of profit-maximization. Furthermore, our rationality postulate, in conjunction with another condition, is shown to be equivalent to firm choice behavior that can be rationalized in terms of profit maximization.Received: 11 April 2003, Revised: 26 April 2004, JEL Classification Numbers: D21.Indraneel Dasgupta: I thank Bhaskar Dutta and two anonymous referees for helpful comments on earlier versions.     

Budget constraint of a firm and economic theory

Summary Firms in reality are subject to budget constraints which general equilibrium theorists have paid little attention. Using Morishima (1950, 1992) model, this paper deals with firms that are subject to budgets pertaining to sales and investment decisions, and proves the existence of a general equilibrium. We show that an economy with firms subject to budgets does not necessarily satisfy the efficiency proposition, and clarify how the total profit maximum condition in the Arrow-Debreu (1954) type economy ensures an efficiency in a limited dynamic sense.The author is grateful to Professors J. Iritani, H. Nagatani, and K. Urai who gave useful comments on occasions of Saturday Workshop on Economic Theory and Mathematics. He is also grateful to Professor M. Kaneko for his useful comments on an earlier version of the paper Kuga (1993), to which this article is closely related.     

资源基础观点及其在企业理论中的应用

20世纪80年代末以前,资源基础观点方面的研究还是相当零散的。钱柏林(Chamberlin,1933)和罗宾逊(Robinson,1933)是最早研究企业特有资源重要性的两位经济学家,与传统的市场结构理论不同,他们重点研究了企业的异质性(heterogeneity),并认为特有的资产或能力是使企业处于不完全竞争状态并获取经济租金(economicrent)的重要因素。     

Towards an economic theory of the multiproduct firm

This paper outlines a theory of the multiproduct firm. Important building blocks include excess capacity and its creation, market imperfections, and the peculiarities of organizational knowledge, including its fungible and tacit character. A framework is adopted in which profit seeking firms are seen to diversify in order to avoid the high transactions costs associated with using various markets to trade the services of various specialized assets. Neoclassical explanations of the multiproduct firm are shown to be seriously deficient.