What Institutions To Organize Electronic Commerce?: Private Institutions And The Organization Of Markets

Abstract

This paper is based upon an analysis of various experiences of electronic commerce. It analyzes the role of private institutions in the organization of systems of transactions. Private institutions take place between public institutions (that are insufficiently specialized) and inter-individual governance structures (that do not benefit from scale and cognitive economies). These private institutions are very diverse and the paper points out the various types of services provided by diverse institutions depending on their constitutional mode.

While various possible institutional frameworks have very different features in terms of coordination, there is no most efficient institutional environment. Moreover, the emergence process of these institutional framework strongly influences their ability to survive. Very different institutional frameworks can therefore organize electronic trade quite differently in the various industries

Keywords:

• (Private) Institutions
• Standardization
• (Market) Intermediaries
• Hybrid Fonns
• Transaction Costs
• Path Dependency

^*This Paper was discussed at the OECD Tokyo Workshop on the Economics of the Information Society, March 4 & 5, 1996.I thank the organizers and the participants for their comments. I am also indebted to Claude Menard (ATOM, U. Paris I) Cristiano Antonelli (U. di Torino), Pascal Petit (CNRS-CEPREMAP) and an anonymous referee for useful suggestions. Usual caveats apply.

^*This Paper was discussed at the OECD Tokyo Workshop on the Economics of the Information Society, March 4 & 5, 1996.I thank the organizers and the participants for their comments. I am also indebted to Claude Menard (ATOM, U. Paris I) Cristiano Antonelli (U. di Torino), Pascal Petit (CNRS-CEPREMAP) and an anonymous referee for useful suggestions. Usual caveats apply.

Notes

^*This Paper was discussed at the OECD Tokyo Workshop on the Economics of the Information Society, March 4 & 5, 1996.I thank the organizers and the participants for their comments. I am also indebted to Claude Menard (ATOM, U. Paris I) Cristiano Antonelli (U. di Torino), Pascal Petit (CNRS-CEPREMAP) and an anonymous referee for useful suggestions. Usual caveats apply.