市场是人类社会生活中最重要的制度之一,自亚当·斯密以来经济学研究本质上就是围绕市场而展开的。然而,经济学家却一直未能提供一个关于市场本身的理论。本文从科斯范式出发.探讨“市场为何存在”这一基本问题以及识别市场存在的边界条件和替代条件。在市场存在理论的基础上,进一步揭示无处不在的、多维度的交易成本如何塑造市场宏观架构和市场微观结构、如何决定市场网络中企业的性质、市场网络劳动分工机制以及交易成本与市场网络如何对经济增长产生影响。本文结论认为,现代经济学不仅应当研究作为“无形之手”的市场,更应当研究作为“有形之网”的市场。
Markets are one of the most fundamental institutions in human societies. In principle, from the times of Adam Smith economic research has been developed around the subject of markets. However, to date, economists have failed to offer a theory of the market itself. Following the Coasian paradigm, this paper explored the basic question of "why do markets exist" and identified both the boundary and substitution conditions of the existence of the market. Based on the existence theory of the market, we further examined how ubiquitous multilateral transaction costs shape the macro-framework and micro-structure of the market network and how these transaction costs determine the nature and function of firms within market network as well as how transaction costs and market network affect economic growth. This paper concludes that today's economics should study the market not only as an invisible hand but also as a tangible network.