Research On Some Transaction Cost Problems For Construction Project Owner's Decision Making

Construction projects are a vehicle for national investments in fixed assets and give insight into the state of a nation's building industry. They are an important way of adjusting the structure of products and industries. Whether the goals of construction projects can be successfully achieved or not is a key to realizing their economic and social benefits, promoting the growth of the national economy, and maintaining long-term prosperity and stability. Construction project transaction mode is about the organizational structure form, function division and management institution of each participant. It plays a decisive role in the construction process.Using the new institutional economics theory of transaction cost, this thesis studies the construction project from the owner perspective. The main emphasis of this research is the owner how to reduce the transaction cost and increase the transaction efficiency through selecting the suitable transaction mode, finding the appropriate contractors and motivating the contractors.First of all, this thesis analyzes the composition of transaction cost and the influencing factors in transaction process of construction projects. The transaction cost is divided into ex-ante transaction cost and ex-post transaction cost.Secondly, According to our comprehensive analysis of the current main transaction modes of construction projects, those transaction modes can be classified under three main categories: traditional transaction mode, general contract transaction mode and management contract transaction modes and will be comparatively studied further. Based on this classification, the single factor's influence on the selection of construction project transaction mode is studied from the transaction cost view. The informed Simple Multiattribute Rating Technique Using Swings (SMARTS) is improved to Fuzzy SMARTS by added fuzzy evaluation in it. Then the Fuzzy SMARTS model is built for selection of the transaction mode under multi-factors'influence. Finally, a case study is used to demonstrate the feasibility of the Fuzzy SMARTS model.Thirdly, during the study of construction project bidding system, because nowadays lowest price biding evaluating method is becoming more and more popular, the transaction cost, informational asymmetries and opportunistic action are considered in order to improve the construction project biding system. The proposal is comprehensive pointrating method is a rational method to decrease the overall cost of construction project.Finally, game models or principal-agent models are built for the different categories of modes. The research emphasizes methods of reducing the contractor's opportunism motive through mechanism incentive and contract constraint. This can provide consultation for the owner's enacting classes of reward and punishment. According to research contractor's opportunistic action can be effectively reduced and the ex-post transaction cost can be decreased through appropriate contract clauses and supervision.