Geoffrey Hodgson

"Market exchange requires a combination of both state and customary institutions. For any developed system of commodity exchange there must be a legal system inscribing and protecting rights to individual or corporate property. There must be a body of contract law with criteria for distinguishing between voluntary and involuntary transfers of goods and services, and courts to adjudicate in such matters. However, the evolution of law is not simply a matter of legislative construction; a great deal of law grows out of custom and precedent. Property and contract law are not exceptions. Consequently, the existence of property and exchange is tied up with a number of legal and other institutions, e.g. government, political system, and common societal values."

"It is because prices are stable, and are perceived by agents to be in equilibrium, that the task facing market institutions is less daunting in this respect. However, market institutions may still have many other functions, such as providing information regarding quality and the location of potential buyers and sellers, and regulating both the product and the entrants to the market. In fact, a crucial function may be more subtle; by ordering trade under the aegis of some institution, the price and quality of the product may be legitimized at its given level. There is a kind of stamp of institutional approval which may contribute in a powerful manner to the emergence of price norms….."

"The nature of the firm is not simply a minimizer of transaction costs, but a kind of protective enclave from the potentially volatile and sometimes destructive, ravaging speculation of a competitive market. In the market the rational calculus depends upon the fragile price conven- tion which can often depend on ‘whim or sentiment or chance’. Habits and traditions within the firm are necessarily more enduring because they embody skills and information which cannot always or easily be codified or made subject to a rational calculus. what the tlrm achieves is an institutionalization of these rules and routines within a durable organizational structure. In consequence they are given some degree of permanence and guarded to some extent from the mood waves of speculation in the market."

"The firm as a relatively durable organizational structure is able to deal with the lack of knowledge about the future fruits of research and development and innovation. Its relative internal stability means that it can carry unquantifiable risks which would be eschewed in the volatility of the market. In particular large firms are able to set up and sustain R&D departments with their own funds. It is widely recognized that atomized, small-scale private enterprise is not well able to make such long-term commitments."

"Some institutions within the market are associated with exchange and contracts in an elemental sense (such as the legal system and the customs which govern the contract)... These would be present even if a formal market did not exist. Other institutions are specifically to do with the development of a market and the coordination of a large number of exchanges in an organized manner."

"We shall here define the market as a set of social institutions in which a large number of commodity exchanges of a specific type regularly take place, and to some extent are facilitated and structured by those institutions. Exchange as defined above, involves contractual agreement and the exchange of property rights, and the market consists in part of mechanisms to structure, organize and legitimate these activities. Markets, in short, are organized and institutionalized exchange. Stress is placed on those market institutions, which help to both regulate and establish a consensus over prices and, more generally, to communicate information regarding products, prices, quantities, potential buyers and potential sellers."