‘Crooks, thieves, and receivers’: transaction costs in nineteenth‐century industrial Birmingham1
研究了19世纪伯明翰珠宝制造区因普遍不诚实和机会主义行为导致的交易成本问题，以及企业如何通过成立协会、制定规则来降低这些成本。
The existence of cooperation and trust between competing economic agents is taken for granted by much of the literature on industrial districts. This article explores the structure of the Birmingham jewellery‐making district and the problems created by the opportunistic behaviour of many of its members. Archival sources show that the district was plagued by endemic dishonesty and that proximity did not generate trust and cooperation. The absence of barriers to entry into the trade created a district where social sanctions could not be used to reduce moral hazard. All these factors threatened to destroy the district during the crisis of the 1880s. The article shows how firms joined together to create the Birmingham Jewellers Association, to establish and enforce ‘rules of the game’, with the aim of reducing transaction costs.