这篇文章好像不是你说那三种。

"Specialization, Agency Cost and Firm Size" by Sungbin Cho

This paper extends the principal-agent model to determine the size of the firm as measured by the number of agent hired. Hiring more agents results in benefits and costs to the principal. The benefits are gains from specialization: higher productivity can be achieved if, as the number of agents increases, their task assignments become more specialized. However, increases in task specialization make monitoring more difficult and costly. In this paper I study peer monitoring among agents. Balancing productivity gains with monitoring costs determines the optimal size of the firm. This paper shows that agency costs due to moral hazard are one factor that sets limits on firm size in a model where it would otherwise be unbounded.

文中有两段讲到这个问题：

The main interest of this paper lies in the trade-off between gains from specialization and monitoring costs. Therefore, this paper sets aside the issue of asset ownership. This paper also sets aside the issues of how firms form and who becomes a principal. It is assumed that a firm exists and the set of tasks that the firm performs is given. But, ignoring asset ownership does not mean that the ownership structure is not important in determining the size of the firm. In some environments, asset ownership is crucial for providing incentives in the presence of incomplete contracts and may be a driving force in determining the size of the firm, as Grossman and Hart (1986) and Hart and Moore (1990) (GHM) note.

The reason for not considering asset ownership is that this paper focuses on the entrepreneurial role of the principal. That is, the primary role of the principal is organizing production. This view goes back to Clark (1909) who notes that “the entrepreneur function in itself includes no working and no owning of capital: it consists entirely in the establishing and maintaining of efficient relations between the agents of production.” Kaldor (1934) echoes Clark and suggests that the fixed factor limiting the size of the firm is coordination. In my view, the rents the principal receives come from the ownership of intellectual capital for organizing production, not from physical capital.6 In this sense, the principal is an entrepreneur who can be an employee.

谢谢，不敢当。

我基本上同意Larry的理解，在讨论企业的边界或者说最佳规模方面，具体地可以分为六类观点：（1）“市场范围论”，这是著名的密斯定理（市场范围限制劳动分工）和杨格定理了。（2）“生产要素论”，这是新古典企业理论，典型的技术决定论。（3）“交易成本论”，这是科斯、威廉姆斯等的交易费用理论。（4）“产权论”，这是经典的GHM模型的结论。（5）“激励成本论”，这可以看作是代理理论的思路。（6）“信息/知识/资源论”，奥地利学派的观点，包括组织资本等。

现在看来，似乎没有一种观点能够取得主导性的地位，因为每一种观点都有一定的道理。实证检验也都不同程度地给予上述各类观点一定的支持。因此我想，更进一步的工作可能需要考虑不同的企业类型或资产类型所引发的最佳规模问题，Rajan-Zingales（2001）做了一些探索，见附件。Cho的工作本身并没有多少亮点，他只是将上述第2、3、6种观点结合在一起考虑。更直白地说，Cho强调的委托人的企业家角色，并没有跳出Alchian-Demsetz（1972）的框架。把企业家才能视为组织生产的功能，这与奥地利学派（如熊彼特）对企业家的定义是完全不同的，我个人也不同意这种理解。

大凡这类最根本、抽象的问题，我不同意研究生去思考，你可以多看，但是不必现在就想在这方面做出点东西来。我自己在《经济研究》上的那篇文章，借鉴了交易费用论和知识论的观点，但是有一些缺陷，至今没有为“组织粘性”的存在找到一个坚实的基础，一些工作仍待以后完成。如果你有什么建议，我们可以讨论。

请教斑竹一个问题：企业理论关于企业边界的理论成果对于分析作为一个组织的高等学校的边界是否也有意义呢？高等学校的边界是否能应用诸如交易成本和组织资本等概念来分析呢？经济学把触角伸到了许多地方，但是在高等教育逐渐从社会的边缘走向社会的中心时，经济学对它的分析太微不足道了。

楼上的有所不知，企业理论其实更广泛地说，应该叫“契约与组织理论”，当然要分析各种组织，包括学校了。张维迎教授在“世纪大讲堂”里谈北大的改革时，就用组织理论的方法分析了高校的治理问题，传这个文件给你看看。

哎，下了五楼的东西，结果浪费了论坛币