企业边界如何决定？——不完全契约理论文献综述

How to Determine the Boundary of the Firm？——A Summary of the Literature on the Theory of Incomplete Contract

企业边界决定问题起源于科斯(1937)对交易成本的分析。交易是经济学分析的基本单位,是通过产权的分割和再配置来分配经济租金的过程,而契约是完成交易的制度安排。因此,自科斯以来,契约成为主流经济理论探讨的重要内容之一。由于契约的不完全性,交易遇到了困难。这时,创造和分配租金的权力,进而由谁拥有资产的控制权以及由此所决定的企业效率边界,便成为需要解决的基本问题。不完全契约框架下的自我履约机制、资产配置理论和进入权理论为较好地解决这一问题提供了答案。本文对这三种理论观点进行了分析和讨论。

The problem of determination on the boundary of the firm originated from the analysis on transaction cost in Coase （1937）. Transaction is the basic units of economic analysis, is a process of distributing economic rent by division of property right and relocation, wherever contract is the institution arrangement. Accordingly, incomplete contracts are becoming the one of important content on mainstream of economic theories after Coase. Transactions encounter difficulties because of contractual incompleteness. At the same time, the authority on creating and distributing rent, and more of who holding and controlling assets, turns into the basic problem to be resolved. The self-enforcing mechanism, the theory of assets allocation and access theory provide successfully the solution to resolving the problem. This paper comparatively analyses the three issues, and gives a useful discussion.