Methods for evaluating transaction costs in the grain production subcomplex

Abstract

Behavior and structure of transaction costs of agricultural enterprises engaged in grain production were studied by way of example of North Kazakhstan Region. The thirteen areas of the region were grouped as to a set of their common features including similar soil-climatic conditions, location, proximity to transport communications and markets for agriproducts. The results obtained have shown that these groups differ from one another in the structure of transaction costs. The evaluation was carried out based on the cardinalist approach using the methods developed by the researchers at the P.A. Stolypin Omsk State University. According to their principles for farm production costs classification, internal and external transaction costs in the form of undrawn profits were singled out and calculated. It is shown that the features of each group influence the composition and structure of transaction costs. Correlation between the amount of transaction costs and scale in production of organizations operating in the agro-food market has been found. Based on the problem-oriented analysis was calculated a share of transaction costs in the total sum of costs of agricultural organizations in North Kazakhstan Region, and were determined the factors influencing the size and structure of transaction costs. It is shown that the development and improvement of the existing organizations and the formation of the new ones are accompanied by, on the one hand, the growth in costs for providing effective functioning of the market, and on the other hand, the reduction at the same time in their average size due to reducing losses related to imperfect mechanism. The evaluation of transaction costs in the grain production subcomplex based on grouping agricultural organizations as to their common features allows determining the sum of explicit transaction costs.