Production costs within the firm or in the market: a comparative view

• Autor(a) principal: Silva, Sergio Evangelista
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Outros Autores: Curi Filho, Wagner Ragi
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Produção Online
• Texto Completo: https://www.producaoonline.org.br/rpo/article/view/2600
• topic: Transaction cost economics. Resources based view. Industrial organization. Efficiency of production factors. Firm theory.; Economia dos custos de transação. Visão baseada nos recursos. Organização industrial. Eficiência dos fatores de produção. Teoria da firma.

One crucial dilemma of the firm is how to perform a given activity, on market or internally. In the literature it is the transaction costs economics (TCE) which better allows this analysis, presenting the most adequate governance form to perform a determined activity. However, only this theory by itself does not allow a complete examination of this topic, as it does not deeply address the role of configuration of productive assets in the activity efficiency. Thus, two questions still remain: What are the underpinnings of the market and firms which determine the costs of the productive activities in these two settings? What is the comparative cost framework regarding the performing of a given activity in these two settings? Referring to these two research questions, the aim of this paper is to propose a model of production costs within the firm and the market based on the efficiency of production assets and on the transaction costs. This model is presented under the lights of TCE, industrial organization (IO), and resource-based view (RBV). As the main result this model allows a better understanding about how the transaction costs and the product asset efficiency determine the development of firms and the economic system as a whole.