Transaction costs and the nature of information : an application to the credit market

Part of : Σπουδαί : journal of economics and business ; Vol.51, No.1-2, 2001, pages 40-64

Issue:
Pages:
40-64
Author:
Abstract:
In this paper we suggest a framework to interpret the transaction costs concept. We consider transaction costs as the resource losses due to imperfect information. We relate the concept of transaction costs to the nature of information. According to the information set it belongs to, an information may be redundant or complementary. As a consequence, transaction costs will be different. We have applied this notion of transaction costs to the credit market taking into account the nature of information. We consider a large population of borrowers and lenders who, matching randomly, may or may not incur information costs. These costs may have a positive effect on the probability of success of the project. We emphasize that upon the nature of information, the lenders as the borrowers may behave strategically in order to minimize the transaction cost losses.
Subject:
Subject (LC):
Keywords:
information theory, transaction costs, credit market
Notes:
Περιέχει παραρτήματα, πίνακες, σημειώσεις και βιβλιογραφία, The authors are grateful to their referee of the 2000 EFMA Conference held in Athens in June 2000.