소비자문제의 본질과 정책적 함의: 거래비용이론에 입각한 유형화를 토대로

초록

With central focus on Pigou, welfare economics argues that consumer problems are primarily caused by market failure such as informational asymmetry and imperfection. However, modern consumer problems seem to have entered a new phase, where symptoms such as increasing confusion in consumer choice have appeared. These may be due to changes in onsuming environments such as more globalized markets and advances in information technology. Therefore, some argued that the necessity of government intervention in consumer problems should be approached based on Transaction Cost Theory. The study attempts to analyze consumer problems from this perspective and proposes a new direction of consumer policy for minimizing transaction costs. First, after giving operational definitions about consumer transaction costs and confirming their type model, 1000 samples were extracted based on proportionate sampling. These samples were labeled as "settled" cases among consumer disputes received in the Korea Consumer Agency over the last year. The extracted samples were analyzed. The analysis showed that the type and frequency of consumer transaction costs per case differ, and it was confirmed that the causes and properties of consumer problems are different and complex. Meanwhile, it was revealed that the type and frequency of consumer transaction costs differ, depending on the item consumed or the transaction method. Eventually, it was revealed that different types of consumer transaction costs occur by transaction step, and this is the cause of consumer problems. The study proposes that consumer policy draw attention towards minimizing consumer transaction costs rather than curing market failure and a variety of policy tools should be developed for this. To elaborate, the study expects that the cause of consumer problems will be identified by the type of consumer transaction costs. Furthermore, the techniques of measuring consumer transaction costs by type and comparing and combining suitable consumer policy alternatives for minimizing each transaction cost will be studied and developed.

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