Research On The Impact Of Vertical Integration Of Listed Companies In Energy Industry On Investment Efficiency

With the promotion of the integration process of energy-related enterprises by the Chinese government,the behavior of enterprises expanding into the front-end industrial chain of the main business is likely to cause non-efficiency investment.At present,academic research on vertical integration and investment efficiency is less,and the energy industry as a basic industry related to China’s national economy is strictly regulated by the state.Therefore,it is necessary to study the impact of vertical integration of energy companies on investment efficiency.This paper takes energy listed companies from 2008 to 2017 as research samples,firstly,this paper estimates the inefficient investment of enterprises through the Richardson model and uses the table method to calculate the agency index of enterprise vertical integration.Thereafter,based on principal-agent theory,information asymmetry theory,transaction cost theory and property rights theory,establish the regression model,in addition,the least square method is used to analyze the correlation between vertical integration and enterprise investment efficiency.The results show that:(1)There are widespread non-efficiency investments in energy-related enterprises,and the situation of under-investment is slightly higher than that of over-investment.(2)The degree of vertical integration of energy-related enterprises is positively correlated with the efficiency of enterprise investment.(3)In the over-investment samples,the vertical integration of energy companies has a more significant impact on corporate investment efficiency.(4)The cross-item between property rights and vertical integration has a significant positive correlation with non-efficiency investment,indicating that in stateowned enterprises,vertical integration has a more obvious effect on investment efficiency.(5)There are obvious industry differences in the impact of vertical integration on corporate investment efficiency.Among them,the degree of vertical integration in oil and gas exploration,electricity,heat production and supply,gas production and supply is positively related to corporate investment efficiency.According to the research results,this paper proposes policy recommendations for the government,the energy industry and the enterprise.As far as the energy industry,it is necessary to play a role in market resource allocation,build a fair energy market system,and promote the vertical integration process of enterprises according to industry attributes.As far as the government,it is necessary to establish a sound energy legal system,strengthen policy guidance and supervision systems,and guide enterprises to rationally carry out mergers and acquisitions.For energy-related enterprises,the allocation of internal resources should be further improved based on the characteristics of the industry on the basis of rationally formulating the integration strategy,so as to achieve the purpose of improving investment efficiency.