Since its emergence in the 1970s, transaction cost economics (TCE) has become a leading approach in the research on contracts, firm organization and strategy, antitrust, marketing, inter-firm collaboration and entrepreneurship. With contributions by leading scholars in economics, law and...

As a student at the London School of Economics (LSE), Ronald Coase posed a seemingly naïve question that would, in time, fundamentally change the face of economics and earn him the Nobel Prize: ‘Why do firms exist?' The import of this simple question derived not only from the response Coase...