서강대학교

목차

Privatization of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is a continuing process in this rapidly globalizing economy, especially in developing countries. Privatization is a very important part of economic reform in transitional economies as well. Vietnam has been implementing a privatization program, referred to by officials as an equitization program since 1992, for both developing and transitional economies. The Vietnamese equitization program differs from most other countries privatization program in terms of the residual proportion of shares owned by the government. This leads to the question whether this difference influence the firm?s performance following equitization. Therefore, first, this dissertation investigates the impact of equitization on firm?s performance by measuring the differences in financial and operating performance between state-owned enterprises and equitized-firms. Second, this dissertation goes further by investigating the impact of key determinants brought about by equitization on post-equitization performances. This research focuses on three key determinants namely, residual state ownership, level of industry competition, composition changes in board of director and chief executive officer in order to understand the effects of these factors on the performances of equitized enterprises. In order to conduct an empirical study, this dissertation uses a panel data of 152 firms belonging to Hanoi Capital from fiscal years, 2001 to 2005. Starting with traditional and simple econometrics methods namely pooled ordinary least squares (POLS) and fixed effects (FE) model, this thesis will then use advanced model of FE, namely two-stage least squares with FE (2SLS-FE) estimation.
Finally, the most advanced econometrics model will be used, which is dynamic-panel data models, specifically, the System-Generalized Method of Moments (SYS-GMM) estimator, developed by Arellano and Bover (1995) and Blundell and Bond (1998). The results are broadly consistent with theoretical predictions on the effects of privatization on firm performance. Specifically, equitization contributes significantly to the differences in performance between equitized firms and SOEs. It is found that equitized-firms outperform SOEs in most performance measures such as profitability ratios, operating efficiency, and capital investments. In addition, consistent with theoretical expectations, this study finds that equitized firms reduce employment and decrease the level of debt ratios relative to state-owned enterprises. The empirical results of this study also indicate that residual state ownership, change in BOD&CEO, and industry competition have significant contribution on post-equitization performance. While the percentage of residual state ownership has significant negative effects on equitized-firm performance, change in BOD&CEO and the level of industry competition have positive effects on firm performance following equitization. This study has both a theoretical and practical contribution. The property rights theory, agency theory, corporate governance theory, organization theory, public choice theory, and the structure-conduct-performance paradigm are all incorporated and developed in this dissertation, thus contributing to the investigation of the effects of privatization on firm performance. In addition, this dissertation provides some recommendations for policy makers regarding the equitization process for Vietnam.