Estimate of Some Transaction Costs for Small Industrial Enterprises

Abstract

The article attempts to evaluate certain types of transaction costs for small businesses. In particular, it considers the costs of access to the law, tax burden, administrative burden, costs of illegality, specification and property rights protection, the costs of information search, costs of opportunistic behavior of employees. The author evaluates the impact of forthcoming institutional changes on transaction costs for small industrial enterprises in the context of such key «chronic problems» for this type of enterprises as low output demand, lack of investment, administrative barriers, underdeveloped transport and energy infrastructure. The article concludes that alongside positive changes, certain chronic problems and associated transaction costs remain outside the reform wave. It refers to such types of transaction costs as the costs of interaction (ex ante): cooperation with large enterprises, new markets entry and new products development (information retrieval related to the study of markets and potential consumers), patent search, excessive burden of small industrial enterprises applying standard tax system, the costs of finding investors, the costs to meet creditors requirements.