Analysis of Value Added Distribution and Level of Transaction Costs in the Russian Corporations

Modern understanding of the corporation as an integrated system driven by a common goal of profit maximization has brought both economic theory and management practices to a deadlock. Incorrect understanding of the modern corporation's core, as well as inability to adequately assess them, became one of the causes of the global economic crisis. One of the promising “reanimation” options of the modern firm theory is the institutional approach. However, this approach is in dire need of measurable operational criteria and indicators that would tie business practices together with their basic theoretical categories: institute, contract, and transaction costs.The scope of this paper is to offer and demonstrate the possibilities of testing methodology for assessing the corporation as an institutional unit of an economic system. To do so, we propose a new approach in the assessment of institutional compliance of the corporations with the expectations of their major subjects. It is based on estimating the distribution of the gross added value between the subjects. Moreover, the technique of assessing the level of transaction costs in corporations, based on data accounting, is proposed. The methods were tested on examples of real Russian metallurgical industry corporations as reported between 2003 and 2012. The presence of a statistically significant negative connection between the share of value added revenue and level of transaction costs, as well as between the share of value added at the owners disposal and the transaction costs level, was established. The presence of a statistically significant positive connection between the level of transaction costs and share of value added, at the disposal of workers, was established