지방공기업 운영에 관한 정책제언

Abstract

This study offers an empirical evidence on how the institutional constraint imposed by local governments makes the difference of the cost behaviors between various types of public enterprises. These public enterprises were divided into two groups which have a financial discretion to plan their own businesses or not. Then, we examined the extent to which the public enterprises have a change in sales costs, operating expenses, and labor costs, based on the change-rate of profits, operating revenues and total sales. First, compared to the group which do not have the discretion, the other group shows a cost elasticity between cost prices and total sales, but this result is not the case of labor costs. Second, the public enterprises which do not have the financial discretion also have a cost elasticity between sales costs and sales profits, but in the case of labor costs, there is a symmetrical cost behavior. The findings indicate that public enterprises with an authority to use profits may expect more efficiency than those without it. This study benefits scholars who want to develop the knowledge about the principal-agent theory and public choice theory as well as practitioners who establish a way to manage public enterprises.