Ethics, Corporate Culture and Economic Modelling

A well known result in the economic theory (Coase 1960) states that, when exclusive property rights are settled, and transaction costs (i. e. the costs related to the negotiation and enforcement of contracts and property rights) are equal to zero, then the market — market of rights, not only of goods — is always able to internalise all the costs, obtaining socially efficient outcomes. As it often happens, the most interesting implication of this finding is represented by its negative complement. In other words, it suggests considering what happens when transaction costs are not equal to zero. In this case, in fact, property rights have to be optimally designed and — if necessary — enforced by means of an authority or a public choice mecha nism, as they cannot be optimally transferred through costly market ex changes. Optimal designing of economic institutions and, in particular, of property rights are therefore a crucial task in the context of real economies, where transaction costs are effective.