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1、生产信息费用与经济组织06.Production, Information Costs and Economic Organization生产、信息费用与经济组织 AA阿尔钦 H登姆塞茨 The mark of a capitalistic society is that resources are owned and allocated by such nongovernmental organizations as firms, households, and markets. 资本主义社会的标志是资源由一些非*组织如企业、家庭、市场所有和配置。Resource owners increa
2、se productivity through cooperative specialization and this leads to the demand for economic organizations which facilitate cooperation. 资源的所有者通过专业化的协作来提高生产率，由此产生了对那种能促进合作的经济组织的需求。 When a lumber mill employs a cabinetmaker, cooperation between specialists is achieved within a firm, and when a cabine
3、tmaker purchases wood from a lumberman, the cooperation takes place across markets (or between firms). 一家木材加工厂雇佣一位木工时，专业化合作是在一个企业内部达成的，而当一位木匠从伐木工那儿购买木料时，合作则是通过市场来实现的。 Two important problems face a theory of economic organization to explain the conditions that determine whether the gains from special
4、ization and cooperative production can better be obtained within an organization like the firm, or across markets, and to explain the structure of the organization.当经济组织理论必须正视两个重要的问题解释1）哪些条件决定了，在组织内部进行专业化及合作生产，比通过市场进行生产的收益更好；2）这种组织的结构 It is common to see the firm characterized by the power to settle
5、 issues by fiat, by authority, or by disciplinary action superior to that available in the conventional market. 一般认为，企业的特点能够是以优于普通的市场的力量来解决问题。This is delusion. The firm does not own all its inputs. 这是一种幻觉。企业并不拥有自己所有的投入。It has no power of fiat, no authority, no disciplinary action any different in th
6、e slightest degree from ordinary market contracting between any two people. 它也不具有命令、强制及对纪律约束的行动的权利，这同任何两个人之间普通的市场合约没有丝毫不同。I can punish you only by withholding future business or by seeking redress in the courts for any failure to honor our exchange agreement. 对于你损害我们的交换协议，我只能以中止未来的业务或诉诸法院来获得补偿，对你进行“
7、惩罚”。 That is exactly all that any employer can do. He can fire or sue, just as I can fire my grocer by stopping purchases from him or sue him for delivering faulty products. 这确实是任何雇主都能做到的。他可以解雇或控告别人，正如我可以不再从我的食品商那儿购买食品以解雇他，或控告他发送劣质食物一样。 What then is the content of the presumed power to manage and as
8、sign workers to various tasks? 那么，企业管理工人以及向他们分派任务的权力到底具有怎样的内容呢？ Exactly the same as one little consumers power to manage and assign his grocer to various tasks. 这确实同一个微不足道的消费者所具有的管理他的食品商，并向他分派各种任务的权力没有什么不同。 The single consumer can assign his grocer to the task of obtaining whatever the customer can
9、in- duce the grocer to provide at a price acceptable to both parties. 单个的消费者向他的食品商所分派的任务，就是诱使食品商提供一个双方都能接受的价格。That is precisely all that an employer can do to an employee. 这确实是每个雇主对他的雇员都能做到的。To speak of managing, directing, or assigning workers to various tasks is a deceptive way of noting that the
10、employer continually is involved in renegotiation of contracts on terms that must be acceptable to both parties. 至于他对工人的管理、指导或分派各种任务，则是一种需要注明的令人迷惑的方面，事实上是雇主继续参与使双方都能接受的合约的再谈判。 Telling an employee to type this letter rather than to file that document is like my telling a grocer to sell me this brand
11、of tuna rather than that brand of bread. 他告诉雇员打印这份信件而不是发送那份文件，就像我告诉食品商卖给我金枪鱼而不是那块面包一样。I have no contract to continue to purchase from the grocer and neither the employer nor the employee is bound by any contractual obligations to continue their relationship. 我没有从食品商那儿继续购买食品的合约。.无论是雇主还是雇员都不会被必须继续他们之间
12、的关系的合约义务所束缚。 Long-term contracts between employer and employee are not the essence of the organization we call a firm. 雇主与雇员之间的长期合约不是我们所说的企业组织的本质 My grocer can count on my returning day after day and purchasing his services and goods even with the prices not always marked on the goods because I know
13、 what they are and he adapts his activity to conform to my directions to him as to what I want each day . . he is not my employee。我的食品商可能会对我每天的报酬以及对他的服务、商品、甚至那些不常标价的商品的购买进行运算因为我不了解它们是什么并根据我每天的需求来调整他的行为，以符合我对他的要求他不是我的雇员。 Wherein then is the relationship between a grocer and his employee different fro
14、m that between a grocer and his customers? 那么一个食品商同他的雇主之间的关系与他同他的消费者之间的关系究竟有哪些差别呢？It is in a team use of inputs and a centralized position of some party in the contractual arrangements of all other inputs. 差别就在于对投入的团队使用，以及在对所有其他投入的合约安排中，有些团体处于一个集权位置。 It is the centralized contractual agent in a team
15、 productive process not some superior authoritarian directive or disciplinary power. 在团队生产进程中，它是集中的合约代理它并不具有更为优越的权威指令或纪律力量。 Exactly what is a team process and why does it induce the contractual form, called the firm? 一个团队生产过程的确切含义是什么，以及它为什么会诱致一种被称为企业的合约形式呢？These problems motivate the inquiry of this
16、 paper.这些问题促成了本文的研究。 I The Metering Problem计量问题 The economic organization through which input owners cooperate will make better use of their comparative advantages to the extent that it facilitates the payment of rewards in accord with productivity. 经济组织通过投入所有者的合作，在一定程度上促进了报酬支付与生产率的一致性，将会更好地发挥其比较优势。
17、 If rewards were random, and with- out regard to productive effort, no incentive to productive effort would be provided by the organization;；and if rewards were negatively correlated with productivity the organization would be subject to sabotage. 如果报酬的支付是随机的，也不考虑生产者的努力，这种组织就没有提供生产努力的激励如果报酬与生产率负相关，组
18、织将成为妨碍。 Two key demands are placed on an economic organization-metering input productivity and metering rewards.因此，经济组织有两个至关重要的需求投入的生产率的计量以及报酬的计量。 Metering problems sometimes can be resolved well through the exchange of products across competitive markets, because in many situations markets yield a
19、high correlation between rewards and productivity. 计量问题有时可通过竞争性市场上产品的交换来得到很好的解决，因为在许多情形下，市场使报酬与生产率之间高度关联。 If a farmer increases his out- put of wheat by 10 percent at the prevailing market price, his receipts also in- crease by 10 percent. This method of organizing economic activity meters the outpu
20、t directly, reveals the marginal product and apportions the rewards to resource owners in accord with that direct measurement of their outputs. 如果一位农民在现行市场价格下使小麦产出增加10，他的收益也会增加10。这种组织经济的活动方式是对产出的直接计量，它反映了边际产品及分配给资源所有者的报酬，正好与产出的直接衡量一致。 The success of this decentralized, market exchange in promoting p
21、roductive specialization re- quires that changes in market rewards fall on those responsible for changes in output.这种分散的市场交换在促进生产专业化方面的成功，要求市场报酬的变化对应于产出的变化。 The classic relationship in economics that runs from marginal productivity to the distribution of income implicitly assumes the existence of an
22、 organization, be it the market or the firm, that allocates rewards to resources in accord with their productivity. 从边际生产率到收入分配的经典经济学关系中，贯穿着的一个内在假定，存在一种组织能使报酬到资源的分配与它们的生产率相一致。 The problem of economic organization, the economical means of metering productivity and rewards, is not confronted directly
23、in the classical analysis of production and distribution. 经济组织以及计量生产率与报酬的经济含义，这些问题在生产与分配的经典分析中并没有被直接面对。 Instead, that analysis tends to assume sufficiently economic or zero cost means, as if productivity automatically created its reward. 相反，分析倾向于假定存在一种充分的或零成本的经济方式，好像生产率能自动地创造出它的报酬似的。 We conjecture t
24、he direction of causation is the reverse the specific system of rewarding which is relied upon stimulates a particular productivity response. 我们推测其因果关系的方向是相反的特定的报酬支付系统依赖于对特定生产率反应的刺激。 If the economic organization meters poorly, with rewards and productivity only loosely correlated, then productivity
25、will be smaller; but if the economic organization meters well productivity will be greater. 如果经济组织的计量能力很差，报酬与生产率之间只有松散的联系，则生产率将较低；但如果经济组织的计量能力很强，则生产率就较高。What makes metering difficult and hence induces means of economizing on metering costs?。那么，是什么使得计量问题发生困难，从而诱致那些能节约计量费用的方式呢？ II Team Production团队生产
26、Two men jointly lift heavy cargo into trucks. Solely by observing the total weight loaded per day, it is impossible to determine each persons marginal productivity. 当两个人联合将一重物运上卡车时，我们只能观察到他们每天装载的总重量，却无法决定每个人的边际生产率。 With team production it is difficult, solely by observing total output, to either def
27、ine or determine each individuals contribution to this output of the cooperating inputs. 在团队生产条件下，如果只能观察到总产出，就很难定义或确定每个人对这个合作投入的产出所作出的贡献。 The output is yielded by a team, by definition, and it is not a sum of separable outputs of each of its members. 按照定义，产出应属一个团队，且不是每个成员的各自产出之和。 Team production of
28、Z involves at least two inputs, Xi and Xj, with 2Z/XiXj0. 团队生产Z至少包括两种投入Xi和Xj，且2Z/XiXj0。The production function is not separable into two functions each involving only inputs Xi or only inputs Xi. Consequently there is no sum of Z of two separable functions to treat as the Z of the team production fu
29、nction. 其生产函数也不能分解为仅包括投入Xi或Xj的两个生产函数，因此，作为团队生产函数Z，不能将Z写为两个分生产函数之和。 (An example of a separable case is ZaXi2bXj2 which is separable into ZiaXi2 and ZjbXj2, and Z= Zi+Zj. This is not team production.) There exist production techniques in which the Z obtained is greater than if Xi and Xj had produced s
30、eparable Z. 这里存在生产技术使Z大于Xi和Xj分别生产Z时的情形。 Team production will be used if it yields an output enough larger than the sum of separable production of Z to cover the costs of organizing and disciplining team members-the topics of this paper. 如果通过团队生产所获得的产出大于Z的分生产之和，以及组织和约束团队成员的成本时，就会使用团队生产这是本文的核心。 Usual
31、explanations of the gains from cooperative behavior rely on exchange and production in accord with the comparative advantage specialization principle with separable additive production. 通过合作行为能获取收益，通常的解释是，相较于分别加总的生产而言，依赖于合作所从事的交换与生产，符合专业化的比较优势原理。 However, as suggested above there is a source of gain
32、 from cooperative activity involving working as a team, wherein individual cooperating inputs do not yield identifiable, separate products which can be summed to measure the total output. 正如上文所表明的，合作活动的所得，来源中包含了团队的运作，但在这里，个体的合作性投入无法识别，分产品可加总以测量总产出。 For this cooperative productive activity, here call
33、ed team production, measuring marginal productivity and making payments in accord therewith is more expensive by an order of magnitude than for separable production functions. 这种合作性的生产活动，我们在这里称之为团队生产，而衡量边际生产率并以其依大小顺序支付工资，其费用比按分生产函数时更为昂贵。 Team production, to repeat, is production in which再重复一下，团队生产是这
34、样一种生产： 1) several types of resources are used and 2) the product is not a sum of separable outputs of each cooperating resource. An additional factor creates a team organization problem-3) not all re- sources used in team production belong to one person. 使用几种类型的资源；其产品不是每一参与合作的资源的分产出之和。一个附加的因素造成了团队组织
35、的问题团队生产所使用的所有资源不属于一个人。 We do not inquire into why all the jointly used resources are not owned by one person, but instead into the types of organization, contracts, and informational and payment procedures used among owners of teamed inputs. 我们并不想探究为什么联合使用的所有资源不为一个人所有，而是想了解在团队投入的拥有者之间，组织类型、合约类型以及获取信
36、息和报酬支付的程序。 With respect to the one-owner case, perhaps it is sufficient merely to note that .针对一个所有者的情形，仅仅注明以下几点也许就足够了：(a) slavery is prohibited, 禁止使用奴隶，(b) one might assume risk aversion as a reason for one persons not borrowing enough to purchase all the assets or sources of services rather than r
37、enting them, 可以假定，一个人不去借足够的钱来购买所有资产或服务，而是去租赁它们的一个原因是避免风险，and (c) the purchase-resale spread may be so large that costs of short-term ownership exceed rental costs. Our problem is viewed basically as one of organization among different people, not of the physical goods or services, however much there
38、 must be selection and choice of combination of the latter购买-再售卖很普遍，以致于短期的拥有成本超过了租赁成本。我们所要关注的基本问题是不同人之间的一种组织，而不是关于有形物品或服务，尽管前者大多是后者的筛选及选择的组合。 How can the members of a team be re- warded and induced to work efficiently? 如何向团队的队员支付报酬，并诱使他们有效地工作呢？ In team production, marginal products of cooperative te
39、am members are not so directly and separably (i.e., cheaply) ob- servable. 在团队生产中，参与合作的队员的边际产品无法直接地和分别地进行观察。What a team offers to the market can be taken as the marginal product of the team but not of the team members. 团队向市场提供的产品，可作为团队的边际产品，而非团队成员的。 The costs of metering or ascertaining the marginal
40、 products of the teams members is what calls forth new organizations and procedures. 要计量与确定队员边际产品的成本，则要求新的组织和程序。Clues to each inputs productivity can be secured by observing behavior of individual inputs. When lifting cargo into the truck, how rapidly does a man move to the next piece to be loaded,
41、how many cigarette breaks does he take, does the item being lifted tilt down- ward toward his side?通过观察单个投入的行为，可以得到有关每一投入的生产率的线索：当一个人将货物搬上卡车时，他转向装运下一件货物的速度有多快，他吸了几口烟，被举起的货物有多大程度倾斜于他那边？ If detecting such behavior were cost- less, neither party would have an incentive to shirk, because neither could i
42、mpose the cost of his shirking on the other (if their cooperation was agreed to voluntarily). 如果对这类行为的监察没有费用，就没有人会产生偷懒的激励，因为谁也无法将他偷懒的费用强加给别人。 But since costs must be incurred to monitor each other, each input owner will have more incentive to shirk when he works as part of a team, than if his perfor
43、mance could be monitored easily or if he did not work as a team. 但是既然相互监督必然要付出费用，每一个投入的所有者在作为团队的一员时所具有的偷懒激励，就比他不在团队里工作或虽在团队里但容易监督时更大。 If there is a net increase in productivity available by team production, net of the metering cost associated with disciplining the team, then team production will be
44、relied upon rather than a multitude of bilateral exchange of separable individual outputs.如果经由团队生产而使净生产率增加，并造产生维持团队秩序的相关净计量费用，团队生产所依赖的就不是分开的单个产出的大量双边交换。 Both leisure and higher income enter a persons utility function.5 Hence, each person should adjust his work and realized reward so as to equate the
45、 marginal rate of substitution between leisure and production of real output to his marginal rate of substitution in consumption. 闲暇及较高的收入都在个人的效用函数里。因此，每个人将会调整他的工作与可获得的报酬，以使闲暇和真实产出的生产之间的边际替代率，等于他的消费的边际替代率。 That is, he would adjust his rate of work to bring his demand prices of leisure and output to
46、equality with their true costs. 即他将调整其工作率，以使他的闲暇与产出的需求价格等于它们的真实成本。 However, with detection, policing, monitoring, mea- suring or metering costs, each person will be induced to take more leisure, because the effect of relaxing on his realized (re- ward) rate of substitution between output and leisure
47、 will be less than the effect on the true rate of substitution. 但是，由于存在侦察、检测、监督、衡量和计量费用，每个人都将被诱致享受更多的闲暇，因为他的产出与闲暇之间可实现的替代率的休息效应将低于真实替代率的效应。 His realized cost of leisure will fall more than the true cost of leisure, so he buys more leisure (i.e., more nonpecuniary reward).他的可实现的闲暇成本将比真实的闲暇成本下降更快，因此他将
48、会“购买”更多的闲暇。 If his relaxation cannot be detected per-fectly at zero cost, part of its effects will be borne by others in the team, thus making his realized cost of relaxation less than the true total cost to the team. 如果他的休息不能在零成本下被完全监察出，那么他的效应的一部分将会由团队中的其他成员来承担，从而使他的可实现的休息成本低于团队的总真实成本。 The difficul
49、ty of detecting such actions permits the private costs of his actions to be less than their full costs. 由于这些行为在监察上的困难，使得他的行动的私人成本低于他们的全部成本。 Since each person responds to his private realizable rate of substitution (in production) rather than the true total (i.e., social) rate, and so long as there are costs for other people to detect his shift toward relaxation, it will not pay (them) to force him to readjust completely by making him realize the t
