资产专用性的度量研究

Study of the Measurement of Asset Specificity

资产专用性是区分各种交易最重要的标志,也是使交易成本经济学与解释经济组织的其他理论相区别的最重要特点,它对公司融资结构、治理机制、纵向一体化、公司绩效和雇佣关系等方面有着非常强的解释力,因此对资产专用性的准确度量也就显得非常重要。本文根据威廉姆森对资产专用性的6个分类,梳理了有关的实证研究文献,对资产专用性的度量方法进行了综述。研究分析表明,每一种类别的资产专用性的度量方法都是多种多样的,不存在一个统一的度量方法,学者们为了得到理想的数据有时不得不牺牲度量方法的准确性;现阶段制约资产专用性实证研究的最大障碍来源于数据的可得性,因此若能获得翔实可靠的研究数据,将会大大地促进资产专用性的实证研究。

Asset specificity is the most important sign to distinguish many transactions and the best characteristic for transaction cost economics to differentiate form other theories explaining economic organization.It is powerful to explain firm’s capital structure,governance structure,vertical integration,corporation performance,employment relationship,etc.So it turns out to be important to measure asset specificity correctly.This paper goes through empirical study literatures on asset specificity and summarizes the measurement methods of asset specificity on the bases of six aspects of asset specificity from Williamson.The results show that,there is various measurement methods of each aspect of asset specificity,united measurement is not exist,and scholars have to scarify the correction of data in order to achieve desired figure.At present,the biggest obstacle to limit the empirical study of on asset specificity is the availability of data,so if the reliable and detailed data is available,the empirical study of asset specificity would be enhanced.