Measuring the Influence of Information Networks on Transaction Costs Using a Non-parametric Regression Technique

All business transactions as well as achieving innovations take up resources, subsumed under the concept of transaction costs (TAC). One of the major factors in TAC theory is information. Information networks can catalyse the interpersonal information exchange and hence, increase the access to nonpublic information. Our analysis shows that information networks have an impact on the level of TAC. Many resources that are sacrificed for TAC are inputs that also enter the technical production process. As most production data do not separate between these two usages of inputs, high transaction costs are unveiled by reduced productivity. A cross-validated local linear non-parametric regression shows that good information networks increase the productivity of farms. A bootstrapping procedure confirms that this result is statistically significant.