Earticle

The purpose of this study is to analyze efficiency and productivity changes of Korean accounting firms for the 1997-2005 period. Further, we also examine efficiency change, pure efficiency change, scale efficiency change and technical change over time to address what factors have driven the productivity changes of Korean accounting firms. To explore our research question, we use DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) developed by Charnes, Cooper, and Rhodes(1978) and Banker, Charnes, and Cooper(1984) and Malmquist productivity index developed by Fare, Grosskopf, Norris, and Zhang(1994). Total number of employees and total assets of accounting firms are used as input variables, and auditing revenue, taxation revenue, and management advisory service revenue are used as output variables. The main results of our paper are summarized as follows. First, our cross-sectional analysis in 2005 shows that the technical efficiency of Korean accounting firms averages 0.764, the pure technical efficiency 0,811, and the scale efficiency 0.944. Out of total 78 accounting firms, 50 firms indicate that they are under increasing returns to scale. Second, our time-series analysis demonstrates that yearly average technical efficiency decreased sharply in 2002 after the Korean Ministry of Finance and Economics loosened the establishment criteria for new accounting firms. This decrease in the average technical efficiency was caused by Non-Big4 accounting firms, not by Big4 accounting firms. Third, our Malmquist productivity index analysis reveals that overall yearly productivity improves over time because technical change has made a positive impact on the productivity changes of Korean accounting firms over the 1997-2005 period. However, the productivity improvement is smaller for the period in which the new establishment criteria for new accounting firms have been applied since 2001.

본 연구는 중국 상업은행을 대상으로 기술효율성을 순수 기술 효율성과 규모효율성으로 분해하여 측정 평가하였다. 전체은행의 경우 기술 비효율성은 45.3%로 나타났는데, 순수 기술 비효율성은 4.3%로 규모의 비효율성 63% 보다 훨씬 적게 나타나 자원의 비효율적인 운영에 따른 비효율성보다는 생산규모에 따른 비효율성에 문제가 있는 것으로 나타났다. 또한 전체 12개 은행 중 8개가 수익 체감을 경험한 것으로 나타났다. 그리고 민간상업은행과 국유상업은행 간에는 순수 기술 효율성에 유의한 차이가 없었으나 규모의 효율성에서 크게 차이가 나타나 국유상업은행이 보다 비효율적이었다. 국유상업은행의 기술효율성 개선을 위해서는 개별 은행의 자원활용 효율성 개선 노력보다는 정부의 금융시스템 구조개혁 등 규모효율성 개선을 통한 노력이 더 유효할 것으로 기대된다.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate technical efficiency, scale efficiency, and pure technical efficiency by 3 inputs and 2 outputs of Chinese commercial banks. Depending on the non-parametric methods(DEA), we estimate technical efficiency using inputs and outputs of 12 Chinese commercial banks without assuming price of goods or behavior of optimization. The average technical efficiency of total banks under constant return to scale and weak disposability is 0.54 in 2004. The technical inefficiency was caused by 4.3% in pure technical inefficiency and 63% in scale failure. The empirical results show that inefficiency has much more to do with the scale of production rather than the inefficient utilization of resources, and the banks under decreasing return to scale occupies almost 70% of total banks, implying those should reduce their production scale. This evidence is more obvious in state owned banks.