"The tardy introduction of transaction costs into economic theory is related to the fact that, until recently, most economic theories and models assumed full information, and transaction costs are in one way or another associated with the cost of acquiring information about exchange. But the concepts of information costs and transaction costs are not identical. A lonely person on a desert island will encounter information costs as he goes about his "home production," but an isolated individual does not engage in exchange and therefore will have no transaction costs."