The Exchange and Enforcement of Property Rights

著者: Harold Demsetz - Readings in Industrial Economics 1964 被引用: 419

Our economic system, with its specialization of economic activities into separate ownership and decision units, requires both control over goods and exchange of goods if it is to cope with the diversity of wants of specialist producers. This paper is concerned with the fact that the exchange of goods and the maintenance of control over the use of goods impose costs on traders and owners. It is also concerned with the cost of govern­ment alternatives to the market place. We seek to establish both the importance and the wide role of these costs in economic life.