Ronald Coase, in his classic 1937 paper on 'The Nature of the Firm,' was the first to bring the concept of transaction costs to bear on the study of firm and market organization.

The presumption that an extant mode is efficient if the expected net gain is negative can nevertheless be rebutted by showing that the obstacles to implementing an otherwise superior feasible alternative are 'unfair.'

The remediableness criterion is an effort to deal symmetrically with real world institutions, both public and private, warts and all. The criterion is this: an extant mode of organization for which no superior feasible form of organization can be described and implemented with expected net gains is presumed to be efficient.

Oliver E. Williamson Quotes