COULD SOCIOECONOMIC METABOLISM BE MOLDED BY TRANSACTION COSTS?

Two key issues that shape the economic development and growth of a country are the independence and effectiveness of the judicial system and the level of bureaucracy. The theory of transaction costs, developed, among others, by Douglass C. North, explores both. Increasing the independence and effectiveness of the judicial system reduces corruption and protects private property and economic freedom while reducing bureaucracy is absolutely necessary to increase a country's competitiveness by lowering the cost and increasing the speed of transactions. This paper introduces the transaction costs approach, the concept of ‘socioeconomic/societal metabolism’ and takes advantage of the Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MuSIASEM) to examine how the ‘socioeconomic/societal metabolism’ could be impacted.