| 摘要 | ��
Research Purpose
It was a general trend in the world that regulation reforms and market liberalization in energy sector in both the 1980s and the 1990s. In case of Korea, the Korean government started to amend the petroleum industry-related laws in 1995 and have carried out market liberalization policy since 1997. The Japanese government also enforced the second deregulation policy in 1996 following the first deregulation policy (1987-1995) and we could observe business cooperation among petroleum refining firms since 1999 in Japan. On the other hand, in the USA, we also observe 2,600 mergers among petroleum firms and there were several merging cases among major petroleum firms in the mid-1990s.
As described above, petroleum industry in Korea, Japan and the USA has been experienced seriously after the mid-1990s and thus it would be necessary to analyze the economic influences of reforms on firms' production activities.
Especially, one of major concerns would be how to obtain the competitiveness of Korean petroleum firms in the Asian market as well as in the world market because we could expect stronger environmental regulations, effectiveness of climate change agreement (so-called Kyoto Protocol), and free trade agreements between Korea and Japan or among Korea, Japan and China. Thus, through the analysis of productivity performance before and after market liberalization, this study is to seek the policy implication to obtain the competitiveness of petroleum industry.
Summary
For the purpose of the study, 5 Korean petroleum firms, 6 from Japan and 12 from the USA are selected as the sample group of the study during the period of 1991-2003. The method of productivity measures applied in this study is the Malmquist productivity change index, non-parametric method.
This study briefly reviewed the contents of market liberalization, current status of mergers or business cooperation in petroleum industry in each country. Next, this study explained the method of the Malmquist productivity change index and provided literature review. The results of productivity estimation are followed by the explanation of firm data used in this study. Finally, the policy implications are explained in the last chapter of the study.
There are several limitations in this study. Firstly, there is data limitation. In the estimation of productivity performance, we need detailed firm data such as labor, capital stock, production. However, this study used very limited data set based on financial reports. Thus, it should be very careful in analyzing the results of the estimation.
The second issue in this study could be the representation of the whole industry of the sample firms. However, total sales of the 5 Korean firms account for 60%~90% level and their average share of sales to total industry production is 79.3% over the entire sample period. In case of Japan, the sales share of 6 firms to total production is 59.2% on the average. One way to avoid the industry representation of the sample firms is to estimate productivity using industry-level data. However, since major petroleum firms of each country are included in the sample of the study, the sample of the study would satisfy the condition of representation at some degree.
The third limitation of the study results from the different accounting method in the financial reports. In cases of Korea and Japan, the financial reports are on the basis of single firm's financial reports rather than consolidated financial reports. On the other hand, the financial reports of the firms from the USA are consolidated ones. One of merits of the consolidated reports could identify the intersectoral trading with subsidiary firms. Thus, we could find whether or not the business performance is overestimated. However, since this study uses the single firm's financial reports for Korea and Japan, there is possibility that productivity performance would be overestimated. Thus, it would not rise a serious problem compared with underestimation of productivity performance.
The last limitation may come from the property of the Malmquist productivity change index. Namely, the estimation results of the Malmquist productivity change index are subject to a specific sample. Thus, the estimation results are dependent upon the sample groups. That is, the estimation results of the same country would be different with different samples.
Research Results & Policy Suggestions
In analyzing the data used in the study, sales per worker and operating income per worker of Korean petroleum industry are smaller than those of Japanese petroleum industry. Furthermore, in comparison of financing structure between the two countries, the former is under worst conditions than the latter in terms of the ratios of long-term debt to total liabilities and of interest payment to total liabilities.
In order to avoid the special situation, namely, the financial crisis of 1998, the sample period has been divided into two periods: 1992-1996 and 2000-2003. According to the results of the Malmquist productivity change index with the very limited firm-level data, efficiency improvement in Korean petroleum sector increased during the second period after market liberalization compared with that of the first period. However, due to deterioratio of technical change index, the average growth rate of the Malmquist productivity index was 0.25% in the second period, which is less than that of the first period, 0.52% on the average.
On the other hand, the productivity indexes of Japan in the second period are higher than those of the first period and the growth rates of the Japanese indexes in the second period are higher than those of the Korean indexes. In case of the firms of the USA, those firms played very significant role in shifting the production possibilities frontier upward as innovators.
One of reasons that the productivity performance of Korean firms is behind Japanese firms would result from the differences in policies or mechanism between the two countries. Furthermore, we could not observe mergers and acquisitions (M&A) or business cooperation among firms in Korea which was observed actively in Japan.
However, Korean petroleum firms will face serious challenges from the effectiveness of Kyoto Protocol and free trade agreement with Japan and China in future. Thus, Korean firms should make every effort to obtain competitiveness. Some implications are as follows in order to survive from competition in the world market, including Japanese firms.
Firstly, one of major factors determining technical progress or efficiency improvement is research and development (R&D). However, the absolute amount of R&D investment of Korean petroleum refining firms is very low compared with those of Japan and the USA. In addition, R&D intensity defined by the ratio of R&D investment to production (0.30% for Korea) is also lower than those of Japan and the USA (0.47% and 0.96%, respectively). Thus, Korean petroleum firms need to invest more in R&D sector and seek to find how to obtain financing sources for the investment.
The second implication would be how to stimulate business diversification in energy sector and vertical integration. Korean firms are concentrated on mainly refining industry and thus their business structure is unbalanced. However, Japanese petroleum firms as well as major world petroleum firms are recently moving toward the improvement of management efficiency by means of mergers and intensity, for example, vertical integration connecting down (refining) and up (exploration and development) streams, total energy company with advance to electricity and liquified natural gas, establishing a holding company. On the other hand, we could not find such movements which have been observed frequently in Japan.
In summary, in order to improve competitiveness of Korean petroleum firms, we may need a policy which drives petroleum product market toward more competitive market structure. And thus Korean firms could advance to up stream or total energy company. Vertical integration would give an opportunity of various and stable financial structure to the firms and we can also expect an effect of energy security by means of holding overseas oil fields.
126 pages, 47 refs., 20 figs., 32 tabs., Language: Korean |
