Second, we utilise quadratic regression to investigate the moderating roles of two governmental mechanisms, an independent government monitoring body IGMB which supervises state-owned en
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This research offers four significant contributions to the existing literature Firstly, our results suggest that state ownership should not be considered to be linearly beneficial or detrimental to firm performance Instead, we provide evidence for a non-monotonic impact of residual state ownership on the performance of privatised firms in the context of the transitional country of Vietnam This finding is established based on rigorous econometric methodologies including semiparametric regression and semiparametric regression with instrumental variable models.
Secondly, we provide some evidence of an inverted U-shaped relationship between residual state ownership and privatised firm efficiency (or the inverse of agency costs) This demonstrates that in a transitional context, relinquishing governmental control via privatisation can significantly benefit privatised firms’ efficiency However, further reduction of state ownership may decrease the efficiency of privatised firms This is consistent with Shleifer and Vishny (1997), who suggest that in some transitional contexts identified with weak corporate governance and limited protection of shareholders, agency problems associated with managerial control might appear and outweigh the benefits of reduction in political control as state ownership falls.
Thirdly, our study finds that the impact of residual state ownership is significantly moderated by various factors including government policies and mechanisms In this research, we explore and uncover the positive moderating role of the independent government monitoring body on the relationship between residual state ownership and privatised firm performance.
Fourthly, we discover the direct positive impact of hardening of soft budget constraint on the performance of privatised firms during the post-privatisation period Our study provides empirical evidence that privatised firms that experience hardened budget constraint significantly outperform those that experience soft budget constraint.
The results from our study provide some implications for policymakers and managers of
SOEs to improve the reforms in the Vietnamese state sector Firstly, our study supports the positive effects of privatisation Evidence from our research indicates that relinquishing dominant control of privatised firms can significantly improve the performance and efficiency of privatised firms However, our study also provides evidence that in the transitional context of Vietnam, state ownership is not merely a source of inefficiency A moderate level of state ownership (less than 40%) is beneficial to privatised firm performance.
At such a moderate level, state ownership acts possibly as a corporate governance device which prevents both the wrongdoing of managers and the expropriation behaviour of other blockholders We call this the “monitoring” effect of state ownership However, when state ownership becomes dominant (more than 40%), the “expropriation” effect of state ownership emerges and outweighs the monitoring effect as the state tends to direct firms to pursue socioeconomic objectives which might be contradictory to the pure economic objectives of ordinary shareholders This finding supports the gradual and partial privatisation policy of
9 the Vietnamese government Since the country has a weak corporate governance system and limited protection of minority shareholders, there could be a temporary optimal position where state and private investors hold a balanced ownership to simultaneously supervise operations and promote the efficiency of privatised firms.
Secondly, our empirical evidence suggests that the independent government monitoring body positively moderates the relationship between residual state ownership and privatised firm performance Findings from our study indicate that transferring the management of privatised firms from the central government, provincial governments and line ministries to one independent government monitoring body may increase the performance of privatised firms The specialised monitoring body is intended to free up ministries from governing SOEs, which leads to less government intervention into the day-to-day business activities of SOEs In addition, the specialised monitoring body is expected to introduce a market mechanism into SOEs and pursue pure state asset maximisation objectives The combination of the above factors may result in higher performance among SOEs as measured by both profitability and market performance.
Thirdly, our findings reveal that hardening of soft budget constraint policy can directly enhance the performance of privatised firms In the global context, there is evidence that state ownership is associated with a soft budget constraint problem, especially in terms of soft credit (Li, Yue, & Zhao, 2009; Lu, Thangavelu, & Hu, 2005), which may distort the efficiency of enterprises (János Kornai, 1986) In our study, we find that privatised firms which experience hardened soft budget constraint outperform those that do not experience hardened soft budget constraint in terms of both profitability and market performance. Under hardening of soft budget constraint policy, SOEs expect to be treated equally to non- state enterprises This ensures fair competition between the state sector and other economic sectors Under this policy, SOEs are forced to transform themselves and become more efficient or they will be eliminated by private enterprises with higher efficiency.
This thesis is structured into six chapters as follows:
Chapter 1 provides an overview of the thesis In this chapter, we briefly discuss the research background, research questions, research objectives, justification for the study, research methodology, contributions of the study, structure of the thesis and definitions of key terms.
Chapter 2 provides the institutional background of our study This chapter gives an overview of the country’s state sector and privatisation process In addition, corporate governance and some key policies to promote the efficiency of privatised firms are discussed.
Chapter 3 reviews the literature on state ownership We explore theoretical arguments and empirical evidence on the impacts of state ownership on firm performance We also review several factors that may influence the impacts of state ownership Finally, we develop a conceptual model and four hypotheses which our study investigates The first two hypotheses are developed to explore the net impact of residual state ownership on privatised firms’ performance and efficiency The next two hypotheses investigate the moderating roles of the independent government monitoring body and hardening of soft budget constraint on the relationship between residual state ownership and privatised firm performance.
Chapter 4 describes the methodologies used in this study We review how semiparametric regression and SFA are used to analyse the net impact of residual state ownership on privatised firms, how quadratic regression is employed to test the moderating effects of the independent government monitoring body and hardening of soft budget constraint, and finally how the propensity score matching technique is utilised to quantify the marginal effects of the independent government monitoring body and hardening of soft budget constraint on the performance of privatised firms.
Chapter 5 provides the empirical results of our study We first present our results regarding the net impact of residual state ownership on privatised firm performance using semiparametric regression Then we present the empirical evidence of the net impact of residual state ownership on privatised firm efficiency (or the inverse of agency costs) via SFA. Finally, we provide an analysis of the moderating effects of the independent government monitoring body and hardening of soft budget constraint on the relationship between residual state ownership and privatised firm performance via quadratic regression and propensity score matching.
Chapter 6 concludes the thesis by discussing the key findings and implications of the study.
We also discuss the limitations of the study.
Since the definitions adopted by researchers may not be universal, we clarify some of the key terms used in this study’.
Privatised firms are previous fully state-owned enterprises that are transformed into joint- stock companies via a privatisation process Partially privatised firms are privatised firms that are still partially owned by the government Fully privatised firms are privatised firms without any remaining state ownership.
Residual state ownership in our study is defined as the percentage of state ownership remaining in a privatised firm after privatisation has taken place (Borisova, Fotak, Holland,
& Megginson, 2015; Haider, Liu, Wang, & Zhang, 2018).
Firm performance in our study is measured by firm profitability, proxied by ROA (return on assets), ROE (return on equity) and ROS (return on sales) (Boubakri, Cosset, & Guedhami,
2005), and firm market performance, which is proxied by Tobin’s Q and the market to book value ratio (Beuselinck, Cao, Deloof, & Xia, 2017; Tian & Estrin, 2008).
Institutional Backgroundd 5s: 2tệcxtecvtttrrerkrrrkrtrrrrrrrrrrrrirrrrrrrrrrer 14 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Overview of state-owned enterprises in the Vietnamese context
Definition of state-owned enterpriSeS . ccsccxcrrtirrrrrrrirrrrrerrrrer 15 2.2.2 Key characteristics of state-owned enterprises . -. -cccccccevrirrrrrrree 16 2.2.3 State sector in comparison with other economic seCtOTS -. + 18 2.3 Overview of privatisation cccccessseessesssesssessseessessusesseessuesssessssesssesssesssnesssessisesseees 20
The first Law on State Enterprises was introduced in 1995 under which SOEs are defined as follows: “The State enterprise is an economic organisation which is capitalised, set up, organised and managed by the State, and carries out business or public utility operations aiming at achieving the socio-economic objectives assigned by the State The State enterprise has the legal person status, civilian rights and obligations, takes responsibility for all its activities in business operation within the limit of the capital placed under its management.” 2
However, the definition has been revised in the Law on State Enterprises introduced in 2003, where the emphasis is on the state’s shareholding structure in SOEs While the previous law defined SOEs as economic entities fully capitalised by the state, this law characterises SOEs as “economic organisations where the State owns the entire charter capital or holds dominant shares or contributed capital, which are organised in the form of State companies, joint-stock companies or limited liability companies.”!5 More specifically, under the new law SOEs are of the following types: (1) enterprises with 100% state capital under the management of central or local governments; (2) limited companies under the management of central or local governments; and (3) joint-stock companies of which the government share is more than 50% of charter capital.
11 Data is extracted from www.ciecdata.com based on the General Statistics Office, Vietnam.
12 Law on State Enterprises 1995, extracted from www.thuvienphapluat.vn
13 Law on State Enterprises 2003, extracted from www.thuvienphapluat.vn
2.2.2 Key characteristics of state-owned enterprises
According to the current management model, large SOEs (including General Corporations and State Economic Groups) are managed by the line ministries at the central level, whereas medium and small SOEs are typically administered by local authorities at the provincial level Under this management scheme, there is no clear separation between government management and SOE administration, which leads to complications and delays in decision- making In addition, SOEs are required to follow both economic and social objectives, which may signify an agency problem between state shareholders and non-state shareholders who purely pursue economic objectives Furthermore, since the performance of SOEs is not measured merely by profitability, managers are not forced to manage SOEs in a way that maximises the value of state assets This creates a dangerous agency problem between SOE managers and citizens, who are the true owners of SOEs SOE managers tend to implement rent-seeking activities that maximise their personal interests.
On the other hand, there are a number of SOEs which have been put subject to the management by the State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC) The SCIC was established in 2005 and acts as an independent specialised monitoring body responsible for representing state capital in the SOEs under its control The main objective of the SCIC is to maximise the investment returns of state capital Also, the SCIC is required to implement the restructuring and privatisation of the SOEs under its control Thus, the SCIC is expected to enhance the performance of SOEs by pursuing economic objectives and separating government functions from SOE management.14
In 2018, the government established the Committee for Management of State Capital (CMSC) and issued Decree 131/2018/ND-CP to regulate the functions, duties, rights and organisation of the CMSC According to the decree, the committee is responsible for the use of government capital and assets in SOEs The committee is supervised by the government, Prime Minister and law-enforcement agencies As directed in Decree 131/2018/ND-CP, all ministries and provincial authorities excluding the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Public Security must complete transfer of the management of SOEs under their control to the committee before
2020 Also, the SCIC is now under the direct management of the CMSC The SBV will
14 Decree 148/2017/NĐ-CP on organisational and operational charter of State Capital Investment Corporation.
16 continue to manage the state capital at commercial banks and credit institutions, and SOEs that provide public products and services are not required to transfer to the committee.
In general, this committee is an extended version of the SCIC The establishment of the CMSC is expected to liberate ministries from performing the function of management of SOEs and separate government functions from enterprise management This may potentially lead to better corporate governance and higher operating efficiency among the SOEs under the control of the committee After transition to the CMSC, the SCIC becomes a division of the committee responsible for managing, restructuring and privatising small and medium-sized SOEs, whereas the rest of the committee focuses on the 19 state-owned conglomerates.
This mechanism demonstrates the government's effort to create an independent specialised management body to supervise and enhance the performance of current SOEs SOEs under the direct management of this entity are expected to operate under a market mechanism and pursue a value maximisation objective, whereas other SOEs that pursue public and social welfare objectives may still be under the control of ministries and provincial authorities.
In theory, the government expects SOEs to continue to be an important economic force in the economy, contribute to economic development, become pioneers of modernisation and industrialisation processes, and lay a foundation for the development of the non-state sector. The government also uses SOEs as important tools to ensure the effective implementation of macro-stabilisation policies, curb inflation and cope with market fluctuations Additionally, some SOEs need to pursue social objectives such as providing public utilities or strengthening national defence and national security In some cases, SOEs may be assigned to invest in fields with less profit or in fields which require large amounts of invested capital such as infrastructure projects where enterprises in other economic sectors are hesitant to invest.15
Paradoxically, the government also expects SOEs to operate under a market mechanism that takes economic efficiency as the main evaluation criterion In addition, the government aims to guarantee fair competition between SOEs and the enterprises in other economic sectors. The government has also committed to gradually eliminating direct intervention, subsidies and favourable treatment for SOEs, especially in terms of access to public land, resources, investment opportunities, business, finance, tax etc.
15 Document of the 10% National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Hanoi: National Political Publishing House.
2.2.3 State sector in comparison with other economic sectors
Over the past several decades, privatisation has taken place in Vietnam as part of the economic reforms This has led to a significant decrease in the number of SOEs As presented in Table 2.1, in 1995 there were 6052 active SOEs; however, the number of SOEs had reduced by 53% to 2835 in 2015.
Table 2.1: Number of SOEs over 1995-2015
Source: Statistical summary book of Vietnam published annually by General Statistics Office, Vietnam
Table 2.2: Contribution of Vietnamese economic sectors to GDP (%) over 1995-2016
Source: Data extracted from www.ceicdata.com based on General Statistics Office, Vietnam
According to Table 2.2, the contribution of the state sector to GDP has declined significantly and constantly from 40.2% of GDP in 1995 to 32% of GDP in 2016 Non-state enterprises have contributed the largest part of GDP and account for nearly half of the country’s GDP Since
2000, the contribution of the non-state sector to the whole economy has remained stable in the range of 47.2-49.1% Importantly, the FDI sector’s contribution to GDP has increased significantly from 6.3% in 1995 to 20.7% in 2016 thanks to growing FDI inflows Since the reforms began in 1986, Vietnam has become an attractive place for FDI due to its openness policy, low-cost workforce and promising economic prospects.
Table 2.3: Share of SOEs among all active enterprises (%)
Source: Statistical summary book of Vietnam published annually by General Statistics Office, Vietnam
In Vietnam, due to privatisation and the rapid growth of the non-state and FDI sectors, the share of the state sector in the economy has reduced significantly in relation to number of enterprises, number of employees, total assets, net turnover and pre-tax profits, as described in Table 2.3 Specifically, SOEs accounted for 14.7% of the total number of enterprises in the economy in 2000, but this fell dramatically to 0.6% in 2015 In particular, the share of SOEs in the total economy in relation to number of employees reduced significantly from 62.3% in
2000 to 10.7% in 2015 In the same pattern, SOEs’ total assets accounted for 68.4% of the assets of all enterprises in 2000, whereas this reduced to 31.4% in 2015 In terms of efficiency, their shares of net turnover and pre-tax profits demonstrate the relatively weak efficiency of SOEs. Since 2000, the share of net turnover and the share of pre-tax profits of the state sector were always lower than its share of assets; this fact shows the relative inefficiency of asset utilisation among SOEs In 2015, SOEs accounted for 31.4% of the total assets of all enterprises; however, they only generated 18.2% and 28.4% of net turnover and pre-tax profits of all enterprises, respectively.
Table 2.4: Comparison between state-owned enterprises, non-state enterprises and FDI enterprises regarding shares of the economy over 2010-2015 (%)
Source: Statistical summary book of Vietnam published annually by General Statistics Office, Vietnam
According to Table 2.4, non-state enterprises account for the largest part of the economy; however, most of these are small and medium-sized firms They also account for half of the total assets of the economy and over 60% of the total workforce Nevertheless, the non-state sector appears to be the weakest in generating sales and earnings Despite holding more than half of the assets and 60% of the total workforce, its pre-tax profits accounted for less than a third of the total economy.
Introduction -.cccc2cct c2 vvhecrtrittrttrrttrrirrttirrrtriirrrirrrriee 32 3.2 Theoretical arguments on the role of state ownership 3.2.1 Theoretical arguments against state ownership 3.2.2 Theoretical arguments for state ownership . cc5ccxcscccvrrccrerrrer 34 3.2.3 Discussion of theoretical arguments 3.3 Empirical evidence on the impact of state ownership : -cccccccccccc+ 36 3 Detrimental effects of state ownership ¿cscccsxcsrrrrxrrrrrrrrierrrrrer 36 3.3.2 Beneficial effects of state ownership -c-scccxrrrterrrrrrrrirrrrrreerrrer 44 3.3.3 Non-monotonic effect of state ownership 3.3.4 Discussion of empirical evidence on the impact of state ownership
The state sector, even in the 21t century, constitutes a significant portion of most economies, especially emerging economies (Megginson, 2017) In transitional economies such as China and Vietnam, the state sector accounts for up to 30% of total GDP (Nem Singh & Chen, 2018). The success of the state-led economy of China has led to a surge in research on state-owned economies.!9 In this chapter, we examine state ownership from several different angles. Section 3.2 reviews arguments both for and against state ownership from a theoretical perspective The current empirical evidence on the impact of state ownership on firm performance is discussed in Sections 3.3 and 3.4 The literature on the role of state ownership in Vietnam is reviewed in Section 3.5 In Section 3.6 discusses conceptual model and hypotheses development Section 3.7 concludes the chapter.
3.2 Theoretical arguments on the role of state ownership
In order to obtain a deeper understanding of the impact of state ownership on firms, this section reviews theoretical arguments often made both for and against the role of state ownership in the current corporate context.
3.2.1 Theoretical arguments against state ownership
A variety of arguments have been put forward against state ownership, of which some emphasise the role of private property rights in creating incentives, others point to the potential conflicts between managers’ and stakeholders’ interests in state-owned firms, and yet there are other arguments emphasising politicians’ self-interest Below we briefly discuss the main arguments.
From the perspective of property rights theory, a term coined by Demsetz (1967), the private firm is an efficient structure for promoting efficiency since this structure is directly associated with property rights The basic concept of property rights is that the owner of an asset has a number of rights comprising the right to use and benefit from the asset, and the right to exchange the asset with others Under property rights theory, property rights are important instruments for improving incentives; this leads to more efficient economic outcomes In accordance with this concept, it is most efficient if assets are under private ownership in
19 Over 50% of studies on state ownership have been conducted in the context of China (Daiser, Ysa, & Schmitt, 2017).
32 comparison to public ownership, since private owners have more incentive to maximise the value of their assets.
Agency theory, which characterises the conflict of interest between managers and shareholders, is one of the main tools for analysing the effects of ownership on firm performance (see e.g Jensen and Meckling (1976)) According to agency theory, both shareholders and managers are utility maximisers In the case of SOEs, agency problems arise when government officers manage state-owned firms in a way that maximises their own interests instead of the interests of citizens, who are the ultimate owners of SOEs. Additionally, in SOEs there might be an agency conflict of interest between the state shareholder and other non-state shareholders In addition to profit generation, SOEs are responsible for the state’s social-welfare objectives and in some cases these objectives may contradict the profit maximisation objective of other shareholders These two types of agency problems raise serious concerns about the efficiency of SOEs.
The public choice theory of Buchanan and Tullock (1962) suggests that politicians and bureaucrats are driven by self-interested motives, leading to decisions that might not be aligned with the public interest In addition, the weak incentive of citizens to monitor politicians’ behaviour contirubtes to poor performance by bureaucrats Politicians may also behave in ways that are inefficient and costly when managing state assets, since they do not have clear profit goals to guide their behaviour To summarise, under public choice theory policitians are unlikely to manage state assets in an efficient way.
Another argument against state ownership relies on the soft budget constraint theory developed by Janos Kornai (1986) Soft budget constraint occurs when the relationship between expenditure and earnings is loose because any excess expenditure above earnings may be paid by the government Soft budget constraint distorts efficiency since firms with soft budget constraint receive financial support from the government and as a result they have less incentive to pursue profit maximisation through, for example, cutting costs, improving the quality of their products or introducing new products or processes SOEs are also often bailed out by government after making serious losses which leads to inefficiency due to misallocation of resources.
3.2.2 Theoretical arguments for state ownership
Although most theoretical arguments have been against state ownership, there are some arguments in favour of state ownership This sub-section outlines some of these arguments and their rationale.
According to the stakeholder theory developed by Freeman and Reed (1983), a firm’s objective should be the satisfaction of all stakeholders and this should not be limited to the shareholders of a firm The stakeholder ecosystem, from this viewpoint, comprises anyone invested, involved in or affected by the company, including internal stakeholders such as employees, managers and owners, as well as external stakeholders such as suppliers, society, government, creditors, shareholders and customers The long-term objective of a firm should be maximising returns to all stakeholders Under stakeholder theory, the seemingly higher profitability of private firms does not necessarily mean that state-owned firms are less efficient since SOEs may pursue national economic and social development goals in addition to profit maximisation (Stiglitz, 2008) For example, according to Hsu, Liang, and Matos
(2017), who studied 70,000 publicly listed firms in 45 countries, government-controlled companies engage more in environmental issues than their counterparts In line with these views, King and Pitchford (1998) provide a theoretical argument that profit-maximising private firms may not bring about a greater social surplus than an equivalent state-owned firm and so measuring performance by a private sector benchmark may not be appropriate.
Agency theory can also be used to support state ownership Some economists argue that agency problems are present in both the private and public sectors In the current corporate context, the ownership of shareholders has become increasingly diverse; hence, it is unlikely that individual shareholders can effectively enforce their property rights and monitor managers’ behaviour This divergence of ownership and control creates the free-rider problem in which managers can easily implement rent-seeking activities at the expense of shareholders (Fama & Jensen, 1983; Jensen & Meckling, 1976) In this case, the state via its ownership can act as a strategic blockholder to monitor and mitigate the wrongdoing of managers Also, the state is likely to play an important role in monitoring firms’ blockholders to prevent expropriation activity which may exist as a result of agency conflicts between large shareholders and minority shareholders Indeed, it is reasonable to think that in comparison with individual shareholders, the state has greater capability to recruit or fire managers especially in countries with weak corporate governance and limited protection of minority shareholders In addition, the government has greater capability to monitor SOEs since there
34 are often one or a few agencies (e.g line ministries, government auditing boards or SOE supervisory agencies) simultaneously in charge of monitoring the efficiency of SOEs (Chang, 2007).
Even though it is often argued that soft budget constraint leads to over-investment behaviour and creates less incentive for efficiency to the managers of SOEs, it is possible that soft budget constraint, as a result of state ownership, acts as a “helping hand” rather than a “grabbing hand” This argument asserts that the state has high incentive to enhance firm performance in order to extract higher tax revenue and maximise the value of its assets Thus, the state may utilise its power to enhance SOEs’ performance The state can apply favourable instruments such as preferential regulations, favourable taxation, credit granting and even subsidies to support firms with high levels of state ownership (Shleifer & Vishny, 1998) The financial support of government via favourable loans and trade credits, especially during time of distress, can help firms by reducing their cost of capital, which may consequently boost their performance In some cases, firms that provide public goods and services which are requested by government may have guaranteed outputs Therefore, their business risk is significantly lower From this perspective, soft budget constraint may bring benefits to individual state-owned firms; however, they can lead to inefficient national resource allocation.
The impact of state ownership is an increasingly controversial topic In the 1990s, the consensus was that state ownership is harmful to an economy and privatisation was the trend all over the world, especially in Central and Eastern Europe However, the rise of Asian nations with state-led economies (especially China) has renewed interest in reassessing the impact of government ownership on firm performance and in economic development.
Most state ownership studies suggest that SOEs tend to be inefficient since they may pursue objectives other than pure profit maximisation Also, as a result of rent-seeking behaviour, managers of SOEs may have less incentive to run SOEs in the most efficient way These issues are exacerbated by the incompetence and weak incentive of citizens to monitor the performance of SOEs Supporters of state ownership, on the other hand, argue that government has interest in enhancing firm performance in order to guarantee tax revenues
2 “Helping hand” effect of state ownership (T Le & Buck, 2011) is well documented, this effect originates from “soft budget constraint” theory of Janos Kornai (1986) In this thesis, “helping hand” effect of state ownership is defined as a potential beneficial effects of soft budget constraint in SOEs.
35 and maximise the value of state investments; hence, government often provides SOEs with a
“helping hand” and also acts as a monitor to supervise managers’ activities Also, since SOEs have to pursue both economic and social objectives, evaluating the efficiency of SOEs via profitability alone might underestimate their performance.
Concẽusion .-. +-â22°â222+zEYx22Y322E312712711211771.11211.T1111 T1
Introduction -.cccc2ctccvtcccrrtrerrrrrrrrrrrrrrtrrrrrrirrrrrrrerriee 138 6.2 Key findings cccrccrihrrhhetrheththh ren 138 6.2.1 Residual state ownership and privatised firm performance
This chapter summarises the key findings and implications of this thesis It is organised into four sections Section 6.2 discusses the key findings; the main implications are mentioned in Section 6.3 Section 6.4 discusses the limitations of the study.
6.2.1 Residual state ownership and privatised firm performance
The results from our semiparametric regression models indicate an inverted U-shaped relationship between residual state ownership and privatised firm performance with a turning point of approximately 40% These findings imply that the net effect of state ownership is not linearly positive or negative; instead, the net effect of state ownership is non-monotonic and is sum of counteracting factors Up to a moderate level (less than 40%), state ownership tends to have a positive impact on the performance of privatised firms When states ownership climbs from 10% to 40%, we observe increases in ROA, ROE, ROS, Tobin’s
Q and market to book value from 5.21% to 9.62%, from 11.02% to 18.83%, from 7.69% to 12.49% and from 0.95 to 1.25 and from 0.91 to 1.43, respectively In contrast, a high level of state ownership is found to be harmful to privatised firm performance When state ownership rises from 40% to 80%, ROA, ROE, ROS, Tobin’s Q and market to book value experience declines from 9.62% to 8.06%, from 18.83% to 15.00%, from 12.49% to 7.92%, from 1.25 to 1.12 and from 1.43 to 1.19, respectively When state ownership is over 80% or less than 10%, the relationship between state ownership and firm performance is not obvious since the confidence intervals are too wide.
As argued in Chapter 5, when residual state ownership is less than 40%, the monitoring effect of state ownership tends to be dominant as the state, via its government agencies, implements supervisory activities to prevent mismanagement by managers and expropriation behaviour by other blockholders The positive effect of state ownership may be further signified by the
“helping hand” effect where the government may provide support to firms in which it has strong interests However, when state ownership becomes dominant (more than 40%) the expropriation effect of state ownership appears and outweighs the monitoring and “helping hand” effects of state ownership, as the state may direct the firm to pursue political and socioeconomic objectives instead of pure economic objectives.
6.2.2 Residual state ownership and privatised firm efficiency
We applied stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) to investigate the efficiency of privatised firms to show how residual state ownership affects the efficiency of privatised firms Consistent with the empirical evidence of the relationship between residual state ownership and privatised firm performance, we also find that the relationship between the residual state ownership and privatised firm efficiency (or the inverse of agency costs) is an inverted U- shaped curve with a turning point of around 50%.
The findings from this study indicate that the relinquishing of dominant government control of privatised firms significantly enhances the efficiency of these firms in the post- privatisation period More specifically, when residual ownership drops from 100% to 50%, the average efficiency of privatised firms increases from 55.62% to 68.26% and from 38.37% to 58.53% in terms of market value efficiency and profit efficiency However, at the pivotal point of 50%, further reduction in state ownership tends to be detrimental to the efficiency of privatised firms as market value and profit efficiency drop dramatically from 68.26% to 47.74% and from 58.53% to 35.82%, respectively when state ownership decreases from 50% to 0%
The results from our study are consistent with other studies indicating that privatisation can bring some unexpected negative effects in transitional economies with weak corporate governance systems and limited protection of minority shareholders In these cases, further reduction in state ownership may create a new type of agency problem of managerial control, which may outweigh the agency problem of political control Therefore, in some transitional economies, partial and gradual privatisation might be a temporarily optimal strategy to provide an opportunity for both state and non-state shareholders to balance their control in order to simultaneously play supervisory roles to maximise the performance of these firms during the post-privatisation period.
6.2.3 Moderating role of independent government monitoring body on the relationship between residual state ownership and privatised firm performance
The results from our quadratic regression models and propensity score matching technique illustrate a positive moderating role for the independent government monitoring body
(IGMB) on the relationship between residual state ownership and privatised firm performance In our study, privatised firms that were under the control of the IGMB (i.e., the SCIC in the Vietnamese context) significantly outperformed those not under the control of
139 this body by 2.2935-3.9244 percentage points and by 0.1220-0.2360 in terms of ROA and Tobin’s Q, respectively This is consistent with several studies suggesting that state investors should not be considered a homogeneous group In fact, the effects of state ownership mostly depend on the implied level of political interference in specific cases State investment when it is associated with political motivations tends to have negative effects on firm performance, whereas state investors who pursue pure economic objectives tend to behave similar to other non-government investors.
The findings from our study suggest that transferring the control of privatised firms from the central government, provincial governments and line ministries to an IGMB can enhance the performance of privatised firms This performance improvement can be explained by less government intervention into the day-to-day operating activities of privatised firms, allowing privatised firms to operate freely under market mechanisms Also, since the objective of the IGMB is maximising state assets under its control, this institution tends to evaluate the performance of privatised firms via financial benchmarks This gives managers of privatised firms incentive to pursue a purely economic objective instead of political and socioeconomic objectives In addition, since most current SOEs are managed simultaneously by several government agencies, assigning the management of privatised firms to one IGMB can reduce the overlap in management of privatised firms between government agencies.
6.2.4 Moderating role of hardening of soft budget constraint on the relationship between residual state ownership and privatised firm performance
The findings from our quadratic regression models do not support a moderating role for hardening of soft budget constraint (HSBC) on the relationship between residual state ownership and privatised firm performance Nevertheless, the results from our quadratic regression models and propensity score matching technique demonstrate that HSBC may have a direct positive effect on the performance of privatised firms In our study, privatised firms which had experienced relatively “hard” budget constraint outperformed those which had experienced “soft” budget constraint by 3.2889-3.6799 percentage points and 0.1124- 0.1437 in terms of ROA and Tobin’s Q This is consistent with the soft budget constraint theory which suggests that soft budget constraints may distort the efficiency of SOEs as firms have less incentive to pursue profit maximisation objectives through cutting costs, improving the quality of their products or introducing new products or processes.
Therfore, it can be argued that HSBC could be an important tool for the government to enhance the performance of privatised firms during post-privatisation period By the
140 government removing privileges for SOEs and ensuring equal treatment of the state sector and other economic sectors, SOEs are forced to transform themselves to become more efficient or they will be replaced by more efficient private firms.
Firstly, as characterised in Chapter 3 there is heterogeneous evidence of the net effect of residual state ownership in privatised firms, this study provides good evidence in support of an inverted U-shaped relationship between state ownership and the performance of privatised firms for Vietnam via applying novel econometric techniques of semiparametric regressions and the stochastic frontier analysis These two econometric techniques are appealing to study the inconclusive net effect of residual state ownership since semiparametric regressions do not impose any a priori functional form on regression function whereas SFA is designed to decompose firms performance differences into inefficiency and random noises The findings are still present when we control for endogeneity.
Secondly, our results suggest that there are factors or mechanisms that may moderate the existing relationship between state ownership and firm performance We find that assigning the management of privatised firms to an IGMB can positively moderate the relationship between state ownership and privatised firm performance.