新制度经济学中不完全契约理论的分歧与融合——以威廉姆森和哈特为代表的两种进路

新制度经济学中不完全契约理论有两个重要分支--交易费用经济学(TCE)和产权理论(PRT)。TCE和PRT都把有限理性、机会主义和资产专用性作为共同基础,但在分析问题的重点和思路上有着严重的分歧。TCE认为契约不完全导致的交易费用主要源于事后的失调,因而强调事后适应性治理;而PRT则认为契约不完全导致的交易费用主要源于事前的专用性投资激励不足,因此强调事前的激励机制。如果能够在有限理性基础上建立数学模型,那么将有望将二者有机融合起来,这是未来的工作。

The Divarication and Amalgamation of Incomplete Contracting Theory of New Institutional Economics

This paper summarizes Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) and Property Rights Theory (PRT) which both are branches of Incomplete Contracting Theory of New Institutional Economics. TCE and PRT share the common base in bounded rationality, opportunism and asset specificity, but have distinct difference in emphasis and method to solve the contractual incompleteness. TCE mainly attributes the transaction cost of contractual incompleteness to ex post disorder, hence emphasize ex post adaptive governance; con-trarily, PRT mainly attributes to ex ante inadequate incentive of specific investment and therefore ex ante incentive mechanism. In future, TCE and PRT will be well amalgamated if there is the model based on bounded rationality.