This paper attempts to explain how the separation of security ownership and control, typical of large corporations, can be an efficient form of economic organization. We first set aside the presumption that a corporation. The two functions usually attributed to the entrepreneur--management and risk bearing--are treated as naturally separate factors within the set of contracts called a firm. The firm is disciplined by competition from other firms, which forces the evolution of devices for efficiently monitoring the performance of the entire team and of its individual members. Individual participants in the firm, and in particular its managers, face both the discipline and opportunities provided by the markets for their services, both within and outside the firm.3793
Economists have long been concerned with the incentive problems that arise when decision making in a firm is the province of managers who are not the firm’s security holders. One outcome has been the development of “behavioral” an “managerial” theories of the firm which reject the classical model of an entrepreneur, or owner-manager, who single-mindedly operates the firm to maximize profits,in favor of theories that focus more on the motivations of a manager who controls but does not own and who has little resemblance to the classical “economic man.” Examples of this approach are Baumol (1959), Simon (1959), Cyert and March (1963), and Williamson (1964).
More recently the literature has moved toward theories that reject the classical model of the firm but assume classical forms of economic behavior on the part of agents within the firm. The firm is viewed as a set of contracts among factors of production, with each factor motivated by its self-interest. Because of its emphasis on the importance of rights in the organization established by contracts, this literature is characterized under the rubric “property rights.” Alchian and Demsetz (1972) and Jensen and Meckling (1976) are the best examples.The antecedents of their work are in Coase (1937,1960).
The striking in sight of Alchian and Demsetz (1972) and Jensen and Meckling (1976) is in viewing the firm as a set of contracts among factors of production. In effect, the firm is viewed as a team whose members act from self-interest but realize that their destinies depend to some extent on the survival of the team in its competition with other teams. This insight, however, is not carried far enough. In the classical theory, the agent who personifies the firm is the entrepreneur who is taken to be both manager and residual risk bearer. Although his title sometimes changes--for example, Alchian and Demsetz call him “the employer” --the entrepreneur continues to play a central role in the firm of the property-rights literature. As a consequence, this literature fails to explain the large modern corporation in which control of the firm is in the hands of managers who are more or less separate from the firm’s security holders.
The main thesis of this paper is that separation of security ownership and control can be explained as an efficient form of economic organization within the “set of contracts” perspective. We first set aside the typical presumption that a corporation has owners in any meaningful sense. The attractive concept of the entrepreneur is also laid to rest, at least for the purposes of the large modern corporation. Instead, the two functions usually attributed to the entrepreneur, management and risk bearing, are treated as naturally separate factors within the set of contracts called a firm. The firm is disciplined by competition from other firms, which forces the evolution of devices for efficiently monitoring the performance of the entire team and of its individual members. In addition, individual participants in the firm, and in particular its managers, face both the discipline and opportunities provided by the markets for their services, both within and outside of the firm.
The Irrelevance of the Concept of Ownership of the Firm 代理问题和企业理论英文文献和翻译:http://www.youerw.com/fanyi/lunwen_233.html