科斯定理与国家理论——权力、可信承诺与政治企业家

权力与可信承诺是国家理论的核心问题。引入权力因素导致科斯定理不再成立:在交易成本为零时,权力的不可转让性消除了趋向最优谈判的压力;而有限承诺加大了谈判结果偏离帕累托最优效率的程度。因此,为了有助于理解经济增长和制度变迁的国家理论,需要分析那些拥有权力的个体的行为。这些人包括专制国家中的君主以及民主国家中的政治家和官僚等。在经济增长和制度变迁过程中,他们中的一些人扮演着政治企业家的角色,发挥着关键行动者和“第一行动集团”的作用。权力和可信承诺是政治企业家理论的重要构成要素,对于把握政治企业家和制度变迁的关系具有重要意义。

The Coase Theorem and the Theory of the State --Power, Credible Commitment and Political Entrepreneur

Power and credible commitment is the key to the theory of the state. Taking the power into account makes the Coase Theorem not hold: the untransferable power eliminates the pressure to the optimal bargaining when the transaction cost is zero, and the limited commitment enhances the degree to which the result deviates from the Pareto optimal efficiency. Thereby the theory of the state that could help understand economic growth and institutional change entails the analysis of the action made by those individuals who have power. This includes monarchs in the monarchies, politicians and bureaucracies in the democratic countries, and so on. Some of them play the role of Key-actor and "the first action group" in the process of economic growth and institutional change. Power and credible commitment are important building blocks of the theory of the political entrepreneur and could help grasp the relationship between political entrepreneur and institutional change.