Transaction cost theory and firm boundaries. Firm transaction cost theory External and internal transaction costs

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Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Branch of the State Autonomous educational institution higher professional education

"Siberian Federal University in Ust-Ilimsk"

Department: "Economics, financial management

and socio-humanitarian disciplines"

COURSE WORK

on the topic: "Transaction costs of the enterprise"

1. Transaction and transformation costs

1.1 Transaction costs

1.2 Enterprise costs

1.3 Cost calculation system

2. Research transaction costs domestic and foreign economists

2.1 Types of transaction costs

2.2 Externalities. transaction costs. Coase theorem

2.3 Transaction costs and contractual relationships

1. Transactionale and transformation costs

The processes of establishing and operating institutions (enforcing and enforcing rules and regulations) and preparing and implementing the process of changing them are costly. These costs are called transaction costs. The significance of transaction costs in the life of society can, in particular, be evidenced by their metaphorical interpretations as “the costs of operating an economic system” (K. Arrow) or as “the equivalent of friction in mechanical systems” (O. Williamson).

Transaction costs are the costs of establishing and operating institutions (observing and enforcing rules and regulations), as well as preparing and implementing the process of changing them.

As a rule, economists try to link transaction costs with some actions in the process of preparing, concluding and executing a transaction, namely:

Search for information;

Negotiating and concluding contracts;

Measuring the attributes of a good;

Specification and protection of rights;

Opportunistic behavior of counterparties.

Douglas North bluntly reduces transaction costs to two items on this list: useful properties the object of exchange and the costs of enforcing and enforcing rights.

If we try to correlate transaction costs with other types of costs in the economy, we can build the following logical chain of reasoning. Any economic process is nothing but the turnover of economic goods.

At the initial stage of turnover, material objects are involved in the "field of human society", that is, they acquire, in addition to natural characteristics, social ones, which makes it possible to interpret these objects as economic benefits. Then they begin to move in accordance with the laws of their social nature, "changing or preserving their natural characteristics. Oil is extracted from the earth, transported to refineries, turned into gasoline, gasoline is burned in a car engine, etc.

The costs of economic turnover, due to the natural characteristics of the good, are usually called transformational by institutionalists.

Their pair category - transaction costs - the costs of economic turnover, due to the social nature of the good, that is, those relations between people that have developed about this good, and ultimately - those institutions that structure these relations. Indeed, the circulation of economic resources is at the same time a chain of "transactions" - interactions, transactions between people, transactions that are also worth something, at least the time of their participants.

Surprising as it may seem today, economists long time did not “notice” the existence of transaction costs and built all their models without taking this factor into account. In the 1990s, this term was used only by a very small number of economists, and it was only after Coase's proof of his famous theorem (1960) that the meaning of transaction costs became the subject of extensive analysis.

Classification of transaction costs. Transaction costs can be classified in several ways. In this chapter, we will limit ourselves to an analysis of five ways of classifying them.

Efficient and real transaction costs: Efficient transaction costs are those associated with the most efficient network of transactions in the implementation of a given type of activity under a given system of public institutions. Their pair category is real transaction costs, which are defined as transaction costs associated with the actual network of transactions.

A change in the system of institutions (the emergence of new institutions, the modification or liquidation of existing ones) leads to a change in the value of effective transaction costs for each type of activity, and also, in some cases, to the emergence of new types of activity. Therefore, the analysis of the dynamics of effective transaction costs is very informative, although it is clear that it is not possible to accurately calculate them at each moment of time. Only an omniscient sage can do this.

The magnitude of the deviation (and it can only be positive) of real transaction costs from effective ones shows how effectively the community uses the established institutions. The greater the deviation, the worse individuals use the opportunities they have for optimizing and locating goods. The existence of such a deviation is due, on the one hand, to the asymmetry of information circulating between economic agents, and on the other hand, the profitability of opportunistic behavior, that is, the possibility of an individual economic agent receiving a larger gain in the event that he refuses to comply with the established rules and norms (while the gain of one often does not compensate for the loss of others - the result of the "game" turns out to be zero or negative).

Explicit and implicit transaction costs

Let us now classify transaction costs according to the criterion of explicitness: explicit (explicit) are those transaction costs that take or can take the form of cash payments to suppliers of transaction resources (necessary for negotiating, concluding transactions, measuring the attributes of goods, etc.). In other words, explicit costs are reflected or can "be reflected in the accounts of enterprises and households, since the economic entity itself assessed them by making a payment to resource suppliers. In the previous reasoning, modal clauses ("may accept", "may be" ), based on the following considerations: firstly, households rarely keep accounting records (at least according to generally accepted standards), and secondly, explicit transaction costs may deliberately not be reflected in the accounts of firms (for example, if these are the costs of maintaining the criminal “roof.” The economic agent clearly does not pay implicit transaction costs (this operation is economic sense), and therefore it is very difficult to take them into account statistically, and if possible, then only indirectly.

Total and average transaction costs

Here we will restrict ourselves to a brief formulation of the relationship between these paired concepts: average transaction costs can be calculated by dividing total transaction costs by the number of transactions (under the same restrictions that were established in the definition of effective transaction costs).

Is an increase in the number of transactions (that is, an expansion of the sphere of exchange) a desirable result? Often, many researchers answer this question in the affirmative. However, let us pay attention to the fact that the concept of effective transaction costs already contains information about the optimal number of transactions with a given product (the shortest chain of transactions for the most efficient allocation of resources of a given volume). An increase in transactions beyond this optimal value is unprofitable, since it leads to an excessive increase in real transaction costs.

Costs of compliance and change, formalized rules and non-formalized norms

If the three classification criteria discussed above apply equally to both transaction and transformation costs, then the fourth and fifth sets of columns represent an internal classification of transaction costs, which actually consists of four:

The costs of complying with formalized rules; these include the costs of concluding and implementing market agreements, as well as the costs of complying with rules that the individual explicitly disagreed with, but enforced, that are enforced;

Costs of changing the formalized rules: the decision to change the formalized rules can be made either by mutual agreement of the parties to the contract (if we are talking on Market Transactions), or by the appropriate authority. In the second case, the costs of changing an unformalized rule will consist of both the costs incurred by the authorities and the costs of those economic agents that are subject to the rule being changed. Naturally, for some interested agents, the benefits from changing the rule will cover the costs, while for others they will not: the benefits will either be much less than the costs, or not at all;

Costs of compliance with unformalized norms; their most important component is the costs of internal psychological experiences from the "crime" by an individual of any ethical standards(although there is no punishment for such a crime legal acts). Of course, all such “psychological costs” are implicit, and it is not at all possible to give them any precise assessment, especially on a national scale, but this is no reason to discount them. The higher the expected “psychological costs”, the more stable the community functions, the less the need to formalize rules and norms. The same classification position includes the costs of upbringing - "inculcating" ethical norms in children, as well as a number of other types of costs little studied in economic science;

Costs of changing non-formalized norms; this group of institutions, unlike formalized rules, changes unintentionally and without any plan. The amount of transaction costs required to change the views of the majority of those who adhere to a particular tradition, just determines the "ease" of its change. It directly depends on whether a specific non-formalized norm is, as it were, a continuation of formalized rules in relation to certain situations or a standard of behavior determined by a system of views and ideas formed by the majority of community members to explain and evaluate the world around them. Naturally, in the first case, the change will occur soon after the change in the corresponding formalized rule, in the second, this will take time, during which more than one generation of living people can change.

External and internal transaction costs The division of costs into external and internal is expedient only when the production of a good is associated with negative external effects: internal costs are borne by the entity that produces the good and forms its supply price, external costs are charged to persons who do not have any from the components of the bundle of property rights to this good (the so-called third parties). The costs arising from the abandonment of the code of honor, the ungentlemanly, "non-contractual" behavior of individuals in the community, are a significant item of the external costs of their fellows. Just as great can be the external costs of blindly following ideological precepts. The "Pavlik Morozov" syndrome is a clear example of this. It is the growth of the external costs of "ethical" behavior that serves as the starting point for changing the prevailing moral and ideological norms.

After short description matrix of transaction costs, we can dwell on one more question that is of serious interest: are there economic processes with zero transformation costs and, conversely, with zero transaction costs? The second part of the question should immediately be given an unequivocal negative answer, since any economic process is a series of transactions of at least two persons, the implementation of which is associated with transaction costs. The answer to the first part of the question is not so obvious. Consider, for example, the process of lending. And the wear and tear of information equipment, and the rental of telecommunications, and the costs Supplies(the list could go on and on) appear to be transformational costs. However specific gravity These costs are very small compared to the actual transaction costs, and above all the costs of inefficient distribution of credit resources. Therefore, to simplify statistical calculations, one can recognize (although this is not true) the existence of sectors exclusively for “transactional purposes”.

Individuals interact with each other within economic systems. IN real world there is a hierarchy of economic systems: some systems are elements of others. Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish between the levels of their organization. Currently, there are several such stable levels:

Elementary Economics;

Businesses and households;

national economies;

Global economy.

They call elementary economic systems, the connection between the elements of which (a person and a group of objects of various kinds) is labor. Labor, in turn, is defined as such a change in the natural existence of objects, which is due to their social existence, is carried out purposefully and is perceived as an increase in the "level of organization" of these objects on the scale of the progress of a given community.

At the second level of organization of economic systems are enterprises (otherwise called firms or organizations) and households (families). Both enterprises and households are in fact mechanisms for coordinating the actions of individuals.

Businesses and households interact in markets. Markets are usually understood as a set of transactions with one product in the territory within which the search for counterparties is effective (that is, further investment of efforts in the search for more distant counterparties is considered inappropriate). The volume of the market is determined as a result of the development of two processes - internalization (when market transactions are included in the framework of firms) and centralization (when the freedom of decision-making by enterprises and households in the market is limited by the state).

The national economy is the interconnection of markets, limited by the state both territorially and through centralization.

The world economy is an interconnection of national economies (through foreign trade, overflow work force and capital, creation international organizations etc.).

Institutions are formalized rules and non-formalized norms that structure interactions between people within economic systems: The existence of such information objects as institutions is a unique phenomenon that accompanies the development of economic systems and has no analogue in inanimate nature. Economic interactions, considered above as links that form economic systems, are “reflected” in institutions and, thanks to them, are reproduced with variations within certain limits set by these same institutions.

The institutions are diverse. The most important of these are contract, property rights and human rights. Ownership includes eleven partial powers. The process of assigning as many components as possible from a bundle of powers to any economic resource (and, accordingly, the obligations arising from the exercise of these powers) to specific persons is called a specification, and the reverse process is called the “erosion” of property rights.

Formalized rules and non-formalized norms change in different ways. The decision to change the former must be made by the relevant authority. The latter are modified spontaneously.

The processes of establishing and operating institutions, as well as the preparation and implementation of the process of their change, involve costs. These costs are called transaction costs. The category paired with transaction costs is transformational costs. These are the costs of economic turnover, due to the natural characteristics of the good.

Transaction costs can be subdivided on five grounds into - effective and real;

Explicit and implicit;

Cumulative and average;

The costs of complying with and changing formalized rules and non-formalized norms;

Internal and external.

1.1 Transaction costs

When studying the economics of an enterprise operating in market conditions, it is necessary to study the transaction costs that arise in the implementation of transactions in the field of exchange.

Transaction costs are among the fairly new economic and insufficiently studied categories in relation to the main subject of a market economy - the enterprise. They are especially high for enterprises in the period of transition to a market economy system, which significantly underestimates its efficiency.

Transaction costs take place both within the enterprise and in the external market.

In our opinion, transaction costs can be grouped into two areas:

1) costs associated with the preparatory work for concluding transactions in the field of exchange: searching for a partner, investor, conducting preliminary negotiations, studying the conditions for the movement of goods and services, drafting a contract;

2) costs associated with reducing uncertainty and risk commercial relations: protection of property rights, protection against fraud, violation of contractual obligations, development and implementation of legal norms and rules of the system of circulation, maintenance of institutions that provide them.

Currently, there are practically no reasonable methods for isolating and measuring transaction costs, which is explained, first of all, by the inability of accounting and management control systems to reflect transaction operations. Under these conditions, we can recommend the analysis of contracts as one! | oh. .from the important components of transaction costs based on the leading prerequisites for the behavior of the participants in the transaction.

Such an analysis should be carried out with the study of the following prerequisites:

- "opportunism after the conclusion of the contract";

- "limited rationality";

asset specifics.

The prerequisites arise from the inability to describe some of the requirements of transactions in the form of a complete, legally binding contract.

For this, the following requirements would have to be met. First, each party would have to foresee all possible circumstances that may arise during the period of the contract and which may cause it to desire to revise the actions and calculations provided for in the contract. Second, the parties must be willing and able to define and agree effective method actions for each of the possible situations, as well as mutual settlements related to these actions. Third, once a contract has been concluded, the parties should strive to comply with its provisions without the desire to further renegotiate the terms of the contract. To this end, each party must be willing and able to implement the measures envisaged for this.

In reality, the enforcement of a full and perfect contract in most cases is not feasible due to "unforeseen circumstances. In these cases, the parties try to find ways to modify the relationship taking into account these circumstances. Such changes give rise to the possibility of opportunism, including violation of the obligations assumed.

The impossibility of having complete information during the period of concluding contracts and foreseeing all the circumstances that may arise in the future leads to limited rational behavior of managers and heads of enterprises.

These shortcomings in concluding and executing transactions on a contract basis are of particular economic importance in the context of the need for significant investments leading to the creation of tangible and intangible assets. The greatest difficulty, in terms of the incentives they create, is investing in specific assets. The specificity of the assets provides for the absence of the possibility of alternative use of the object of the contract without significant losses. Using the principle of value maximization, then the specificity of an asset is measured by the percentage of the value of an investment lost when a given asset is used outside of this particular setting or structure.

Table 6.3 shows different approaches to the description of contracts allocated depending on the consideration of behavioral prerequisites.

cost negotiation contract

Table 6.3 Contract Research Approaches

In table 6.3, the sign "+" means taking into account the principle, "O" - the rejection of it.

A simplified scheme for concluding a contract is shown in Fig. 6.2.

The parameter K reflects the specific features of the transaction. When K = O, ordinary assets are involved in the transaction, which indicates the absence of “specific assets”, when K> O, the latter takes place.

Parameter 5 measures the degree of protection of investments that generate specific assets, i.e., the presence of certain insurance at > O (there is none at 5 = 0). Accordingly, states A, B, and C reflect different types of contract schemes, where RA, RV, and RC are the prices set under the contract.

It should be noted that it is necessary to take into account changes in transaction costs when restructuring enterprises. This is explained by the fact that the restructuring process is carried out on the basis of separation, connection, liquidation (transfer) of existing and organization of new structural divisions, accession to the enterprise of other organizations, acquisition of a determining share in the authorized capital or shares of third-party organizations.

Table 6.4 Forms of reorganization of joint-stock companies

Forms of reorganization	Transfer (transfer) of rights and obligations	Mandatory conditions for reorganization
Confluence: A + 6 = C	Completely from L and V	1. Based on the decision general meeting shareholders by a majority of 3/4, unanimously - in LLC production cooperative
Connection: L->B = in	Completely from A
Division: A 1 (B and C)	Completely from A in accordance with the separation balance sheet
Selection: L->L and V	Partially from L in accordance, dividing balance sheet

The choice of the form of reorganization is determined by specific conditions. Preference should be given to the option that requires the least investment, is the most realistic, less risky, i.e., ultimately, the option in which transaction costs are minimal per unit of the expected effect.

1.2 Enterprise costs

1. Definitions and classifications of costs.

The costs of the enterprise should be understood as the costs of the enterprise's resources and third-party services expressed in terms of value for the production and sale of the main products.

One of the main tasks of the enterprise economy is to measure in value terms and evaluate the effective consumption of resources for the production of products and services,

To this end, the company must have a cost accounting system.

The main objectives of the cost accounting system are;

determination of the cost of products or services of the enterprise as a basis for pricing.

Calculation of the efficiency of the functioning of individual divisions of the enterprise and manufactured products, the formation of optimal plans for procurement, production and marketing;

Determining the lower limit of the price of the enterprise's products when concluding sales contracts;

Determination of the upper price of purchased resources

Generation of statistics to compare costs in terms of time in relation to competitors, etc.

There are various possibilities for classifying (grouping) costs. The choice of classification depends on the type and purposes of accounting.

From the point of view of the type of allocation of costs, we can distinguish:

Period costs: year, quarter, etc.;

Unit costs: piece, kg, km, etc.

According to the method of reference to the object of accounting (measurement), there are:

Direct costs that can be accurately attributed to a product or division

Indirect costs that cannot or are very difficult to accurately attribute to a product or department, these costs are allocated to products or departments according to some pre-established criteria (“keys”): number of personnel, production areas, volumes, number of installed equipment or installations, and etc.

On the basis of the dependence of the value of costs on the volume of production, there are:

Fixed (fixed) costs, which can be absolutely fixed and conditionally fixed, for example, depreciation of equipment and salaries of the enterprise administration can be attributed to absolutely fixed costs, an example of conditionally fixed costs can be the costs of routine inspections and equipment repairs;

Variable costs, which can be proportional, progressive or regressive; for example, basic materials and wages of workers under a piecework system, cutting tools, energy, etc.

According to the connection of costs with payment flows, there are: l,

Payment costs, which include almost all variable costs and part of fixed costs;

Non-refundable costs that are taken into account in the calculation, but do not require payments; for example, depreciation is treated as a paper cost but does not need to be paid in cash.

According to the volume of Inclusion in the cost of production, there are:

Costs that are fully included in the cost of production; taken into account when calculating using the full costing method.

Costs partially included in the cost; taken into account in the calculation" using the partial costing method; for example, only variable and fixed payment costs are taken into account.

By the type of resources used and third-party services, there are:

Costs of materials, including indirect costs of ordering, transporting, warehousing and storing materials.

Personnel or labor costs, including additional payments to wages and social insurance costs

Costs for the maintenance of fixed assets; e.g. equipment of buildings, structures and

Outsourced service costs: energy, rent, repairs, transportation and taxes, and other costs.

According to the functional areas of the enterprise, there are:

Logistics costs associated with the purchase, transportation, storage and movement of resources

Production costs related directly to! processes for the production of products or services;

Marketing, sales, management, design and technological and other costs.

From the point of view of the cost measurement system used, there are:

Planned costs based on the predicted volumes and prices of consumed resources; “actual costs measured on the basis of actual volumes and prices.

Normative (standard) costs calculated on the basis of average volumes and prices.

From the point of view of the source of information about costs, there are:

Basic costs that can be measured or calculated based on accounting data; V costing costs, which are calculated additionally or with a different value compared to cost items in accounting.

Estimated depreciation as a cost is included in the cost of the amount that reflects the non-nominal (accounting), and the market value of fixed assets.

For example, the cost of purchased equipment is K = 100 CU (monetary units), the standard depreciation period is T n = 10 years, then accounting depreciation is equal to A CU = 10 CU / year.

If the actual market or projected value changes during operation, or the enterprise plans to replace equipment in a shorter time than the standard period, then it is necessary to calculate annual depreciation based on the estimated prospects. For example, if we assume that K market (forecast) = 120 cu. and Tkalk = 6 years, then Akalk = 20 m.u./year.

Calculation interest is a reward for invested capital. For someone else's (attracted) capital, the company pays interest on the loan, which are included; into costs, Owners' capital must also be interest-bearing, otherwise they may have alternative options for allocating their capital. Thus, the calculation model should include remuneration of owners that is not included in accounting items, which can be calculated according to the following scheme

Calculation percentage =. (Fixed capital - Working capital - Borrowed capital) *Interest rate.

The interest rate can be taken in calculations equal to the minimum rate depositing funds in the most reliable banks.

Each enterprise should include in the calculation the risks that may occur irregularly and vary in magnitude; The following types of costing risks should be taken into account:

Fluctuations in the exchange rate, interest rates on loans, the cost of resources;

Losses of working capital;

Significant damage or destruction of equipment; » risks associated with the provision of guarantees

Transport risks, etc.

Quantitative risk values are calculated based on the processing of statistics for the enterprise or industry. If risks are insured, then they are not included in the cost items. Instead, insurance costs are included. Thus, the enterprise has an alternative: either insure risks and include them as fixed payment costs, or calculate risks.

1.3 Cost calculation system

Basic elements of a cost accounting system n. The system includes calculation of costs by types, places of occurrence and calculation.

Based on the data on costs coming from the accounting department, the first step is implemented: the calculation of costs by types of resources consumed. As a rule, the following types of costs are distinguished:

materials,

Staff,

fixed assets,

third party services,

Taxes, etc.

The resulting costs are divided into direct and indirect. Further direct costs; are assigned to the respective subdivisions, and indirect ones are distributed to subdivisions 1 according to the agreed “keys”. There are various technologies for the distribution of indirect costs. However, the most commonly used method involves the sequential step-by-step separation of the costs of the auxiliary divisions of the enterprise into profit centers (profit centers). As a rule, the reallocation of costs is carried out in tables.

This method allows you to calculate the share of costs of auxiliary units attributable to the corresponding profit center. The data obtained can serve as a basis for calculating the share of indirect costs of a particular auxiliary unit in the unit cost of production. Once direct costs have been identified, indirect costs have been redistributed, and percentages of indirect costs have been calculated, it is possible to calculate the products or services of the enterprise,

The main idea of the target cost method (MTC) is to determine the allowable costs based on the marketing price of the product even before the creation of the product, to distribute them among the structural elements of the product in accordance with their functional load.

Thus, it is possible to initially plan the allowable costs for individual elements of the product and conduct their further development in accordance with the recommended level. In this case, the classic question "How much will the product cost?" will be replaced by another “How much can the product cost? ”, since the starting point of the analysis is the price of the goods, determined on the basis of marketing research.

Consider the main stages of work when using the MCI.

First of all, the properties that may be inherent in the product are described. Based on the consumer assessment of the importance of these properties, a functional diagram of the product in question is formed. Moreover, each property specified in it corresponds to the weight coefficient assigned to it,

Then the amount of allowable costs is determined. Relying on marketing research conducted before the development of a new product with a certain set of properties, as a rule, it is possible with big share confidence to talk about the price level established at this species goods. Thus, the expected market price is actually known. This indicator will be the starting point for further planning of the expected market price- target price.

Further, based on the conditions prevailing on the market for this product and the characteristics competition, are planned: the amount of discounts that are provided to customers; the value of the structural costs of the enterprise attributable to the product in question; the amount of taxes, as well as the desired profit on the estimated sales volume. On the basis of these data, target (admissible) costs are obtained, i.e. those costs that the enterprise can afford under the current state of the market.

After determining the level of allowable costs, you should! analyze their structure. To do this, it is necessary to draw up a block diagram of the object under study by levels. Having received a detailed element-by-element breakdown of the object, it is necessary to compare the assessment of the importance of the product property and the share of one or another group (product element) in the performance of this property. The initial fixing of the price and the required properties will allow the product to successfully compete in the market. In addition, the method serves to satisfy the needs of all interested parties. It fully allows to take into account the interests of both the producer (seller) and the consumer, as well as the state as a tax recipient. The manufacturer practically, guaranteed to receive the planned profit, the consumer a product with the desired characteristics at a price that suits him. At the same time, the MCI allows you to manage costs. Moreover, cost management does not occur through purely economic methods, but moves to a fundamentally new level using the potential contained in the optimization of design solutions.

The cost of production is the cost of production, expressed in monetary form, for the means of production consumed in the manufacture of products, wages for labor services of other enterprises, the costs of selling products, as well as the costs of managing and servicing production.

For planning and accounting, as well as for studying the cost structure, all costs for the production and sale of products are grouped by economic cost elements and by cost items.

The grouping of costs by economic elements is needed: to determine the overall need of the enterprise for material and monetary resources; to link the plan at cost with production program, with plans for logistics, labor and wages; to determine the cost structure and establish the main directions for reducing production costs.

The cost of economic cost elements takes into account the cost of producing the entire volume of products (works). In element-by-element classification, elements are grouped according to the nature of their formation, regardless of the intended purpose and place of origin.

Cost elements are groups of production costs formed according to their economic purpose.

The costs that form the cost of production are grouped according to their economic content according to the following elements:

Material costs(excluding the cost of returnable waste);

Labor costs;

Deductions for social needs;

Depreciation of fixed assets;

Other costs.

The actual cost of production also reflects: losses from marriage, the cost of warranty repairs and warranty service of products, shortages material assets in production and in the warehouse in the absence of guilty persons; disability benefits due to work-related injuries.

The element "Material costs" reflects the cost of:

Acquired from the side of raw materials and materials that are part of the manufactured products;

Purchased materials that are used to ensure the normal technological process and for product packaging (auxiliary materials)

Spare parts for equipment repair;

Depreciation of tools, fixtures, inventory:;

Purchased components and semi-finished products;

Works and services of an industrial nature performed

third-party organizations purchased from the fuel of all types;

Purchases of energy of all kinds.

The Labor Costs element reflects the labor costs of the main industrial and production personnel, including bonuses to workers and employees, stabilizing and compensating payments (including those related to price increases and income indexation).

The element “Deductions for social needs” reflects mandatory contributions to state social insurance bodies, Pension fund Russian Federation, the State Employment Fund of the Russian Federation, for medical insurance.

The element "Depreciation of fixed assets" reflects the amount of depreciation deductions for the full restoration of fixed assets. production assets. Enterprises indexing depreciation charges also reflect in this element the amount of the increase in depreciation charges as a result of their indexation.

The element "Other costs" includes taxes, fees, deductions to special off-budget funds, payments for compulsory insurance of enterprise property, remuneration for inventions and rationalization proposals and etc.

Except total costs for the production of all products, it is also necessary to take into account the costs attributable to some certain kind products, and thus be able to determine the costs per unit of output. For these purposes, a cost accounting system is used. It allows you to determine the cost of manufacturing a unit;

a certain type of product, the factors under the influence of which this level of cost was formed, and the direction of reducing the cost of production.

Unlike the elements of the calculation sheet, they combine costs formed taking into account their specific purpose and location.

With costing classification, cost elements can be distributed over several items. Therefore, two groups of costs are distinguished in the calculation sheet: simple costs, consisting of one element, which cannot be subdivided into other, qualitatively different items.

Complex costs involving several elements that can be decomposed into primary elements.

The list of cost items, their composition and methods of distribution by types of products are determined by industry methods. General list of articles:

Raw materials and basic materials.

Purchased semi-finished products and components.

Returnable waste.

Transport and procurement costs.

Fuel and energy for technological purposes.

Basic wages, basic production workers.

Additional wages for key production workers.

Deductions for social needs on the wages of the main production workers.

Costs neither maintenance nor operation technological equipment.

Shop expenses.

General production expenses.

Costs for the development of new designs, as well as the organization of new industries:

Valid for this production marriage losses.

Other production expenses,

Non-manufacturing expenses.

The cost structure is understood as the share of various types of costs in the total cost of production. The cost structure depends on the characteristics of production (branch of production, type of production, geographical location, etc.)

Industries differ from each other not only in the composition of cost elements, but also in the ratio of elements. For example, in light industry, the cost of raw materials and materials reaches 80%. Depending on which cost element prevails in the cost, it is customary to distinguish: material-intensive, fuel-intensive, energy-intensive, etc. labor-intensive industries. Such a classification shows at what expense: it is possible to achieve cost reduction.

1.4 Content and calculation tocost items

The article "Raw materials and basic materials" includes the cost of raw materials and materials that are part of the manufactured products, forming their basis, as well as auxiliary materials that are used in the process of manufacturing this product to ensure a normal technological process.

The article "Purchased semi-finished products and components" includes the cost of goods purchased in the order of production cooperation finished products and semi-finished products for the completion of manufactured products, requiring labor costs for their processing or assembly.

The article “Additional wages of the main production workers” includes payments provided for by law for the unworked time of workers: vacation pay, payment for privileged hours, payments for length of service, for the performance of public duties, etc. The article “Expenses for maintenance and operation technological equipment" include:

Maintenance production equipment, Vehicle and valuable instruments;

Depreciation of production equipment and vehicles;

Compensation for the wear and tear of rapidly wearing tools and the cost of their restoration

Other expenses associated with the operation of equipment.

The determination of these costs per unit of output is made either in proportion to the basic production wage, or by the method of estimated (normative) rates.

The following expenses are included in the item “Shop expenses”:

Basic and additional wages, together with deductions for social needs of shop personnel (engineers, technicians, economists, employees, etc.), as well as auxiliary workers engaged in household work;

Labor protection and safety expenses;

Depreciation of buildings, structures, inventory;

Expenses for experiments, inventions and rationalization;

Other expenses.

The item "Overhead costs" includes the following costs:

Basic and additional wages, together with deductions for social needs of the factory administrative and managerial personnel;

Depreciation of general factory buildings, warehouses and inventory;

Business travel expenses;

Labor protection expenses;

Expenses for training and organized recruitment of labor force;

Taxes and fees, other obligatory expenses and deductions.

Shop and general production costs are distributed between various types products in proportion to the sum of the basic wages of the main production workers and expenses for: maintenance and operation of equipment.

If there are no great differences in the level of mechanization and automation of the manufacturing processes of individual products, then shop and general production costs are distributed in proportion to the basic wages of the main production workers.

A special group of production costs are the costs of introducing designs and new industries. This group of costs consists of two subgroups: costs for the development of new product designs and the organization of new industries; special expenses, which are the costs of manufacturing technological equipment (models, special cutting and measuring tools, fixtures, stamps, etc.)

Under the current regulation, direct development costs new technology financed from the profits remaining at the disposal of the enterprise. This does not give grounds not to take into account the cost of development costs, which are very high. By their economic nature, development costs are a special kind of production costs. They are both direct and fixed costs: direct - because they can be attributed to a specific product; constant - because their absolute size does not depend on the size of the output. All other direct costs (basic materials, production wages) are generally variable costs, however. Features of cost accounting in market conditions

One of the alternatives to the traditional domestic approach to calculating the full cost is the approach when, when calculating, an incomplete, limited cost is planned and taken into account. This cost may include only direct costs, only variables that depend on changes in production volumes.

It can only be calculated based on production costs, i.e., costs directly related to the manufacture of these products, the performance of work or the provision of services, even if they are indirect.

But despite the different completeness of the inclusion of types of expenses in the cost of the object of calculation, the common thing for this approach is that other types of expenses, which also in their economic essence form part of the current costs, are not included in the calculation, but are reimbursed in full from the proceeds (gross profit ).

A feature of the organization of accounting in Western firms is its division into financial and management (production) subsystems, which is objectively due to the difference in their goals and objectives.

Rules for maintaining financial accounting and drawing up external financial reporting regulated by the state. Organization of management (production) accounting, internal business of the company. The administration itself decides how to classify costs, how to detail them and link them with responsibility centers, how to keep records of actual or standard (planned, standard), full or partial (variable, direct, limited) costs.

The most important types of costs to be accounted for in Western European countries are:

payroll costs;

material costs;

Energy costs;

Repair costs

Taxes, contributions, insurance;

Depreciation costs;

interest,

Other costs.

This list may vary depending on the national characteristics of accounting and the degree of detail.

From the point of view of using the direct costing system, there are no fundamental features in comparison with the full cost accounting system. The division of costs into fixed and variable necessary for organizing direct costing cannot be carried out in cost accounting. Indeed, often the same type of cost in different cost centers behaves differently in relation to a change in the volume of production. For example, the wages of ancillary workers may be variable in one cost center, semi-variable in another, and virtually unchanged in a third with changes in capacity utilization or output. Thus, the separation of costs into fixed and variable, as well as their separate accounting by type, can only be organized in the context of cost centers.

In order to organize accounting by cost centers, the company is divided into production elements of varying degrees of detail, where planning, accounting and control of indirect costs are carried out. The costs recorded and planned at a given origin are direct for it: Origin accounting gives an idea of the firm's horizontal cost structure.

The organization of such accounting makes it possible:

Control the formation of costs;

reasonably distribute indirect costs by cost carriers.

To solve the first problem, the cost centers must match the cost responsibility centers. The degree of detail, the hierarchy of cost centers is also not regulated and must be determined economic feasibility and management needs in this particular production.

The second task necessitates the division of costs into fixed and variable. This is only possible at the cost center level, as this is the only way to determine how the costs of different types of a given cost center behave with volume changes.

2. The study of transaction costs of domesticny and foreign economists

Currently in the world economic theory the importance of institutionalism increases sharply, bringing new opportunities for understanding socio-economic processes, but at the same time forming its own categorical apparatus. One of the most important concepts of the categorical apparatus is transaction costs, the true economic essence of which has not yet been revealed and, therefore, at the same time there is a noticeable spread of opinions in their interpretation. In the economic literature, an institutional aspect has been developed in the interpretation of transaction costs. It is argued that transaction costs are informational in nature, they are also associated with the measurement of the characteristics of goods, with the exchange of property rights or rights to any activity, the conclusion of a contract, as well as with the coordination, interaction and resolution of conflicts between economic agents.

The political and economic aspect, involving the identification of the economic nature of these costs and the reasons for their occurrence, has not been sufficiently developed in the economic literature. In this dissertation research, we are on the path of political and economic interpretation of transaction costs. This is due to endothermic analysis and reliance on cause-and-effect relationships, while judgments are based on the trinity "production costs - distribution costs - consumption costs".

...

Forms of transaction costs

Transaction costs (transaction costs -transactioncosts) are the costs in the area associated with the transfer of . The category of transaction costs was introduced into economics in the 1930s. Ronald Coase and is now widely used. In his article "The Nature of the Firm" he defined transaction costs as operating costs.

Consider the possible alternatives provided to us by everyday life. Typical example- renovation of the apartment. You can do it yourself if you know how and if you have an interest in it. Or you can organize the whole process by hiring workers from the market for each specific operation, buying paint and calculating how much it is needed, etc. In this case, you are trying to get into a series of transactions that will be purely market and exclude your interaction with by one firm. After all you do not trust the company in advance, believing that it has its own interest, and you will make repairs cheaper. However, if you are a busy person or rich enough, you hire a company to repair an apartment, because your opportunity cost time is higher than the costs that you spend on organizing this process. This is most often associated with wealth effect"- "wealth effect". For the first time this term was also introduced by Coase. In his theory, the concept of "transaction costs" is opposed to the concept of "agency costs", and the choice between one or another type of costs is largely determined by the "wealth effect".

Currently, transaction costs are understood by the vast majority of scientists integrally, as the costs of the functioning of the system. Transaction costs are the costs that arise when individuals exchange their property rights under conditions of incomplete information or confirm them under the same conditions. When people exchange property rights they enter into a contract. When they confirm their ownership, they do not enter into any contractual relationship (they already have it), but they protect it from attacks by third parties. They are afraid that their property rights will be infringed by a third party, so they spend resources on protecting these rights (for example, building a fence, maintaining the police, etc.).

Generally, there are five main forms of transaction costs:

information search costs;
the costs of negotiating and concluding contracts;
measurement costs;
costs of specification and protection of property rights;
costs of opportunistic behavior.

Information Search Costs associated with its asymmetric distribution in the market: the search for potential buyers or sellers have to waste time and money. The incompleteness of the available information turns into additional costs associated with the purchase of goods at prices above equilibrium (or sale below equilibrium), with losses arising from the purchase of substitute goods.

The cost of negotiating and concluding contracts also require time and resources. The costs associated with negotiating the terms of sale, legal registration of the transaction, often significantly increase the price of the item being sold.

A significant part of transaction costs are measurement costs, which is connected not only with the direct costs of measuring equipment and the measurement process itself, but also with the errors that inevitably arise in this process. In addition, for a number of goods and services, only indirect or ambiguous measurement is allowed. How, for example, to evaluate the qualifications of a hired employee or the quality of a purchased car? Certain savings are caused by the standardization of manufactured products, as well as the guarantees provided by the company (free warranty repairs, the right to exchange defective products for good ones, etc.). However, these measures cannot completely eliminate the costs of measurement.

Especially great costs of specification and protection of property rights. In a society where there is no reliable legal protection, cases of constant violation of rights are not uncommon. The time and money required to restore them can be extremely high. This should also include the costs of maintaining court and government agencies who are on guard of law and order.

Costs of Opportunistic Behavior are also related to, although not limited to, information asymmetry. The point is that post-contract behavior is very difficult to predict. Dishonest individuals will comply with the terms of the contract at a minimum or even evade their implementation (if sanctions are not provided). Such moral hazard always exists. It is especially great in conditions of joint work - team work, when the contribution of each cannot be clearly separated from the efforts of other team members, especially if the potential capabilities of each are completely unknown. So, opportunistic called the behavior of an individual who evades the terms of a contract in order to profit at the expense of partners. It can take the form of extortion or blackmail when the role of those team members who cannot be replaced by others becomes obvious. Using their relative advantages, such team members may demand special conditions of work or pay for themselves, blackmailing others with the threat of leaving the team.

Thus, transaction costs arise before the exchange process (ex ante), during the exchange process and after it (ex post). The deepening division of labor and the development of specialization contribute to the growth of transaction costs. Their value also depends on the dominant form of ownership in society. There are three main forms of ownership: private, common (communal) and state. Let's consider them from the point of view of the theory of transaction costs.

Paul R. Milgrom and John Roberts proposed the following classification of transaction costs. They divide them into two categories, coordination costs and motivational costs.

Coordination costs:

Costs of defining contract details— a market survey to determine what can generally be bought on the market.
Costs of defining contracts— studying the conditions of partners who supply the necessary services or goods.
Direct Coordination Costs— the need to create a structure within which the parties are brought together.

Motivational costs:

Costs associated with incomplete information. The limited information about the market can lead to a refusal to complete a transaction (acquisition of a good). This is due to the fact that the level of uncertainty can become so high that people prefer to refuse a transaction rather than spend energy on obtaining additional information.
The cost of opportunism. These costs are associated with overcoming possible opportunistic behavior, with overcoming the partner’s dishonesty towards you, and lead to the fact that you hire an overseer, or try to find and put into the contract some additional measures of your partner’s effectiveness.

O. Williamson tried to evaluate all transactions by transaction frequency and asset specificity.

1. One-time or elementary exchange on an anonymous market.

An example of a one-time purchase would be buying a teapot in the market. Having bought one kettle, you will buy the next one only when this one breaks. In this case, there are no specific assets, but the fact is that the seller does not care who to sell the teapot to. Price is the only determining factor here.

2. Repeated exchange of bulk goods.

There is still no asset specificity. For example, constantly buying bread from the same seller, you know that he good quality, and therefore do not spend money on an additional assessment, whether the bread was sold to you good, what kind of bread is in other bakeries, etc. This is very important, because in this way you significantly save on the costs of searching, on the costs of measuring the quality of bread, and your behavior gives the seller greater confidence in turnover (that he will sell bread).

3. Recurring contract associated with investments in specific assets.

What are "Special Assets"? A specific asset is always created for a specific transaction. Let's say I built a building to be used as a workshop. I can, of course, use it alternatively, but then I will suffer losses. Those. even the next best opportunity after the best use of this asset brings much less income and is associated with risk. Specific assets are those costs, the next use of which is much less profitable.

4. Investments in idosyncratic (unique, exclusive) assets.

Idiosyncratic asset is an asset that, in alternative use (when it is withdrawn from a given transaction), loses its value altogether, or its value becomes negligible. These assets include half of production investments - investments in a specific technological process. Let's say, a built blast furnace, except for intended purpose, can no longer be used. Even if climbing competitions are held on it, it will not pay even 1% of the cost of its construction. In this case, the asset is idiosyncratic, i.e. tied to a particular technology.

14. Transaction costs do not include:

1. Costs of choosing partners in the transaction

2. The cost of negotiating

4. Transportation costs

5. Costs of not executing a transaction properly or avoiding them

Sample answer: 4

15. The supreme body of a joint stock company is:

1. Meeting of shareholders

2. CEO

3. Board of Directors (Supervisory Board)

4. Executive body

5. All the listed bodies jointly solve all issues.

Sample answer: 1.

16. The rights of an ordinary shareholder do not include:

1. Receiving a dividend

3. Familiarization with the company's documentation

4. Redemption of shares by face value on demand

5. All of the listed rights are characteristic of an ordinary share

Sample answer: 4

17. In joint stock company:

1. Ownership and management are separated

2. The only owner is the board of directors

3. Management is in the hands of shareholders

4. No need to publish results economic activity

5. All of the above is wrong

Sample answer: 1

In what sectors in a market economy is there most often state property?

1. In the production of shoes and clothing

2. In retail

3. In infrastructure industries

4. In agriculture

5. In production building materials

Sample answer: 3

20. The functions of the exchange are all except:

1. accumulation of capital,

2. ensuring intersectoral capital flows,

3. creation of an effective owner,

4. information support.

Sample answer: 3

21. Hierarchy is:

Sample answer: 2

22. The characteristics of spontaneous order include everything except:

1. coordination of actions through the market,

2. subordination of individual actions of individual participants to the orders of the center,

3. making decisions based on your own motives and available information,

4. submission of their actions to information about prices.

Sample answer: 2

23. The boundaries of the firm's efficiency are determined by the growth of transaction costs associated with:

1. the phenomenon of loss of control,

2. the effect of information distortion,

3. growth of accounting costs,

4. weakening of motivation,

5. all of the above is correct.

33.1. Transaction Cost Theory: Initial Views

The theory of transaction costs originates from Ronald Coase's The Nature of the Firm (1937), in which he directly linked the existence of the firm to the presence of these costs. 3 Unlike the agency approach, which analyzes the relationship between different actors, regardless of whether they are inside the same enterprise (or some other organizational unit), or outside it, the theory of transaction costs puts the following skinny central questions from the point of view of the theory of the firm, but > Shanno: whether the product should be produced within the firm, or outside it and bought by the firm. In this case, we are dealing with the so-called make-or-buy decision and the related question of the firm's "natural" or efficient boundaries.

According to R. Coase, the decision to either produce or purchase products depends on the value of the corresponding transaction costs. The organization of production within the firm is preferable to the market mechanism if the costs of using the market mechanism, or transaction costs (TC), are higher compared to the costs of administration within the enterprise. Thus, according to this logic, firms exist for minimization TS. With this conclusion, this approach differs, say, from the theory of stakeholders, in which the firm is interpreted as a means of coordinating and satisfying the interests of various stakeholders. As for the size of the enterprise, it is also directly linked (taking into account considerations of efficiency) with the value of the corresponding transaction costs. And the firm will expand its activities as long as the costs of conducting transactions within it are lower than the costs of implementing the corresponding transactions through the market.

So, if firms hierarchical structures, find greater efficiency in conducting economic transactions in comparison with the market, these transactions are internalized within the firm. Such internalization of transactions enables companies to use the previously discussed (paragraph 2.2) economies of scale (i.e., the effect of reducing production costs with an increase in production volume) and the network effect (when joint production, for example, of two products is cheaper than their separate production) . In this case, the boundaries of the company can be defined taking into account the boundaries of the effect of economies of scale.

Transaction costs accompany various business decisions and may be associated, for example, with the need for a firm to search for an equipment supplier on the market, negotiate with the supplier on the terms of supply of this equipment, etc. The subsequent development of neo-institutional economics, including the theory of transaction costs, drew attention to the analysis of differences between markets And hierarchies, made it possible to obtain a number of new results that are important for the analysis of the processes of vertical integration And diversification. This issue, having important theoretical significance, is of undoubted practical interest, especially in the light of periodically occurring waves of mergers and acquisitions, which are witnessing an increase in various industry markets currently we are. The process of vertical integration, regardless of its type (“upstream”, i.e. back to suppliers, or “downstream”, i.e. forward, to trade, consumers, etc.), is a process of translating transactional costs from the market and their internalization within the company. And such internalization is carried out if hierarchical structures (enterprises, organizations) are characterized by greater efficiency in conducting transactions in comparison with market structures (for more details, see Chapter 11). The development of the Coase TS theory in relation to the analysis of the firm is associated with the studies of a number of authors, among the most significant of which are the works of Oliver Williamson. Developing the Coase approach, this author analyzed the properties of the TS and for each transaction tried to justify the effective forms of its implementation. According to his ideas, for the implementation of the TS within the framework of the market mechanism or their internalization within the enterprise, the following three properties are critical: frequency; unreliability; specificity. Let us present the corresponding explanations of these properties:

1) at frequency transactions it turns out to be more appropriate "proprietary" organization. Among other things, this is due to the fact that the fixed costs of creating administrative structure within the firm, with a significant number of ongoing transactions, they can be distributed (divided) into a larger number of operations. This achieves their minimization (rationalization);

2) when unreliability transactions, especially if decisions are considered at long-term intervals, the probability of their rupture increases over time. Similar situations within the company are much easier to resolve, including the possibility of using "administrative resources";

3) specificity (assets- asset specificity) is measured by the loss of economic advantages in the event of a break in relations between partners in transactions. The more specific are transactions, the higher the advantages of conducting them within the enterprise (organization) and the lower - through the market.

In the previous paragraph, considerable attention was paid to contracts as a form of organizing the interaction of economic entities with different interests with an asymmetric distribution of information between them. It is reasonable to raise the question of what impact on the development of contracts and their content have transaction costs that were not previously included in the analysis of contractual relationships. Let's discuss these questions.

But if the firm, with its hierarchical organization principle, is more efficient than the market organization, then why does the market exist alongside firms? Why can't the entire economy be organized in the form of one gigantic firm or a single country-factory (which V. I. Lenin dreamed about)?

The theory answers the question in the following way. As the size of the firm increases, so does the cost of organizing additional transactions within the firm. Consequently, the firm can expand not indefinitely, but to such extent until the costs of organizing one additional transaction within the firm become equal to the costs of conducting a similar transaction through an exchange on the open market or equal to the costs of organizing it through another firm.

Let's see what exactly is expressed in the growth of transaction costs with a change in the size of the firm.

· Loss of Control Phenomenon

As the size of the firm increases, so does the number of transactions carried out by it. Sooner or later, their number exceeds the physical capabilities of one person. From this point on, the entrepreneur involved in the coordination of resources is unable to optimally place and use the factors of production, he begins to make mistakes in management. This phenomenon in economics is called the phenomenon of loss of control. The way out is to create a management pyramid that distributes the decision-making process among many people. But there is another danger here.

· Information distortion effect

A growing company generates the effect of information distortion when it is repeatedly transferred between people. Since the manager can work directly with only a small number of employees subordinate to him, the increase in the size of the firm is accompanied by an increase in the number of levels of the hierarchy. The transmission of information on these levels is delayed, the information is distorted. There is a bureaucratization of the company, i.e., the flexibility of decisions is lost and errors appear.

· Decreased motivation

Another problem that arises with the increase in the size of the firm is the weakening of motivation. In a giant corporation, managers at various levels are just employees, often doing their job without the enthusiasm and initiative, in contrast to the passionately striving for success owner of a small firm. The market is able to create and maintain more powerful incentives. That's why big firm it is necessary to bear additional costs for the organization of control over the proper use of production factors.

· Rising accounting costs

Finally, the increase in transaction costs also occurs due to the need to maintain additional accounting and reporting.

In this regard, new questions arise: to what size can a firm expand? Where is the firm's efficiency frontier? What is the criterion for its optimality?