장기증분원가의 산출과 활용에 관한 비관적 검토 -통신산업의 사례

Traditionally, regulators have relied on accounting-based historical costs for price regulation in regulated industries including telecommunications, electricity and gas. With the introduction of competition, however, the economic cost called 'long run incremental cost (LRIC)' is increasingly being adopted in these fields. This study critically analyses and discusses from the accounting and economics perspectives the 'standard cost model' which was recently developed to compute LRIC in the Korean telecommunications industry. A special attention is paid to the issues: assumptions about the degree of efficiency, departure from economic capital costs, errors on the limited utilisation of cost drivers and cost estimation, capacity costing and sensitivity, unbalanced burden of risk(real option). This cost model produces costs conceptually different from accounting costs. However, accounting scholars need to pay attention to the economic cost model as it is an important case where the abstract concept of an economic cost was applied to a real world situation. In addition, LRIC has relevance to strategic management accounting since LRIC is conceptually similar to the costs which new efficient entrants would incur and thus allows firms to understand their competitive positions. This study has also important implications for management accounting practitioners who are expected to provide cost information of the firm itself as well as outside information including regulatory environment, competitors' strategies, and new production processes and technologies etc.