중소기업제품 정부계약제도의 지대활용에 관한 연구

Abstract

The entire procurement amount in the public domain of South Korea in 2019 accounted for approximately 159.9 trillion won, which corresponds to about 8.3% of the nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 1,914 trillion won in 2019. Many nations around the world perform various supporting policies using the purchasing power of the government. The ‘government contract system for small and medium enterprises’ products’ is a typical example of such a policy in the case of South Korea. Such a policy was first stemmed from the collective private contract in 1965 in which the government at the time signed a contract for the products manufactured by the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with the Small and Medium Enterprise Cooperatives (SMEC). The collective private contract system, however, was abolished in 2007 due to the issue of pursuing the rent by enterprises as well as the poor monitoring and supervision from the government. Afterward, the government contract system for the SME products has transitioned into the ‘competition system among the SMEs', however, it has still intact maintained the attribute of rent seeking of collective private contract system in terms of its targets and operation patterns. Under such circumstances, studies on the design and implementation of the system are in a very poor shape to simultaneously accomplish the conflicting policy objectives, for instance, efficient use of the budget and support for the SMEs. In that regard, through expanding the rent-seeking theory, this study defined a series of dynamic behavioral processes in which the government contract system for SMEs’ products has led to the creation of rent by the government (creation and revision of the policy), a rent distribution (implementation of the policy), and rent-seeking by enterprises corresponding to the government stance, in addition, the rent seeking as the ‘rent utilization’, and a qualitative analysis was conducted to investigate the rent utilization process. In addition, an empirical analysis was conducted on rent seeking with regard to estimation of rent scale and process of rent utilization. As the analysis results of rent utilization process in each system, first, by concluding a private contract with the SMEC and delegating the right to allocate supplies to them, an extreme rent seeking, such as expanding, maintaining, continuing the system as well as allocating the supplies to a single company that has conducted a rent seeking (sale activity), has occurred. The collective private contract system was abolished due to the rent seeking by enterprises and the lack of monitoring and supervision from the government. Second, the competition system among the SMEs has transitioned the way of rent distribution to a competitive manner, however, it still ensured a certain portion of rent through the entry and price regulations. Not only the authority for allocating supplies but also the scale of rent was reduced as the participation into bidding by the individual enterprises. As a result, the rent seeking has become to focus on the activities in which the role of the SMEC and the rent of the SMEs are ensured. In other words, the SMEC and SMEs has conducted the rent seeking including restoration of the contract method to exercise the right of recommendation of the SMEC, price exaggeration, collusion, and violation of direct production. Third, the multiple award schedule (MAS) has shifted the perspective of the government contract system for the SMEs’ products into the consumer from the supplier. MAS becomes not only a means of inducing the extinction of rent through a selection of consumers in the existing simple price competition but it also increases the competition among enterprises in the rent at the same time by using a mechanical entry and price regulations. As result, the rent seeking activities, for instance, dual specifications in private and public domains, high-priced contracts, collusion, lobbying behaviors for supply, and violation in specifications, appear. Fourth, the excellent procurement goods system, which prioritizes the support for the SMEs rather than the procurement efficiency of the purchasing institutions, is a supplier-oriented support policy in that it drives demand by private contracts with a unit price basis in advance. This system creates and distributes the exclusive rent through the designation of goods and private contracts. Therefore, the rent seeking is mainly concentrated on the creation and revision of regulations for the designation of goods as well as the lobbying activities that are necessary to have a customer selection. As of 2019, the rent scales of the current government contract system for SMEs’ products, which were proceeded by the Public Procurement Service, show 15.56% of the entire supplied record in the competition system among the SMEs, 26.45% in the MAS, and 33.12% in the excellent products, respectively. The total rent reaches a scale of 34,744.89 billion won, accounting for 24.51 % of the entire supply record of 141,723.31 billion won. The rent of the collective private contract system is estimated to be 31.37% of the entire contract amount, and in the case of the competition system among the SMEs, the rent scale of each system by employing the portion of contract performance capability assessment, which is the criteria of the competition system among the SMEs, are exhibited in order of a 33.12% in the excellent products, 28.49% in the MAS, and 24.10% in the competition among the SMEs (contract performance capability assessment). In addition, except for the collective private contract system, the average scale of the rent in the 3 systems currently in place is estimated to be 28.57 % of the entire contract amount. The empirical analysis results of the rent-seeking costs in the course of rent utilization are as follows. First, this study analyzed the relationship between the rent creation extent of each category and the cost for rent seeking, and the results revealed that the excellent goods and the collective private contract were assessed to be the highest followed by MAS (high) and the competition among the SMEs (medium) and these are in line with the order of scale in the rent (the excellent goods-the collective private contract-MAS-the competition among the SMEs). However, it is assessed that the rent dissipation rate of the collective private contract would be slightly higher than that of the excellent goods in terms of the rent distribution, and analyzed that not only the number of competitors and the pluralism of a rent distributor become higher but also as the system evolves to the competition among the SMEs-MAS-the excellent goods. Second, the assessment on both the support for the SMEs and the procurement efficiency, which is the objective of the rent utilization process, were analyzed by each system. The results revealed ‘very high’ and ‘very low’, respective, for each domain in the collective private contract, ‘high’ and ‘medium’ in the competition among the SMEs, ‘high’ and ‘medium’ in the MAS, and ‘very high’ and ‘medium’ in the excellent goods, thereby indicating that in the validity of objective, the collective private contract were assessed lowest and the excellent goods was assessed highest. Third, the assessments for entry and price regulations were used for cost assessment in the rent utilization methods of each process with regard to both the creation and revision of a policy (creation of the rent) and the implementation of a policy (distribution of the rent). The descending order of each system in terms of the entry and price regulations is listed as the excellent goods-the collective private contract-MAS-the competition among the SMEs, and this is in line with the order of the rent scale. Fourth, in order to verify the activity relationship of rent utilization and the cost level of rent seeking, a comprehensive assessment was conducted in 3 domains such as the level of price determination, the level of rent collection, and the level of rent seeking. The results of the assessment exhibited the order of the excellent goods (very high)-the collective private contract (very high)-MAS (high)-the competition among the SMEs (medium), which is the same order as the level of the estimated rent scale. Thus, in the empirical analysis of the rent seeking cost with regard to the rent utilization process, it was able to find that all the results of assessing the actors, purposes, and methods of the rent utilization process, detail activities, and levels of rent in each system were consistent with the order of scale in the calculated rent. The implications of this study are as follows. First, this study provides a unified framework for the government contract system for the SMEs’ products from a cost-effective perspective, thereby enabling to lead to the overall theoretical arguments and criteria not only for the design and execution of the system but also, moving forward, for the policy or administrative procedure of procurement including the design and execution of the system. Second, by quantitatively estimating the scale of the rent for each government contract system for the SMEs’ products and empirically analyzing the rent seeking costs for each rent utilization process, this study captures the flow of the rent numerically, enabling to establish and implement the specific system design and its implementation standards. Third, the analysis framework in the rent utilization of this study can be applied to other systems that create and distribute the rent as a policy means for the agenda of the policies such as the economic development and policies industrial domains.