재무제표로 본 동양척식주식회사

This study examines ODC’s operating, financing, and investment activities by analyzing ODC’s business reports for agricultural management, colonial finance, and holding company periods. We identify the shareholders’ composition and governance structure, account items, company size and income, profitability and growth rate by asset source, and capital management and financing. In addition, I decomposed ODC’s return on equity(ROE) by period and compared the ROE components with those of companies listed on KSE to infer ODC’s economic status compared to listed companies today. The results of the empirical analysis based on ODC’s business report on the two research topics of this paper are as follows. First, we can gauge the reality of Japan’s exploitation of Joseon by looking at the profitability and growth rates reflected in ODC’s accounting data. The state-owned lands invested by the Korean Empire were returned to ODC through annexation, and although they appeared legal on surface by using the form of a corporation, in reality they were no different from robbery. In addition, numerous farmlands, forests, and mountains owned by the Korean Empire and the royal family were transferred to the Government-General of Korea and managed by ODC, which took over without paying a single penny. In addition, ODC’s net income for the period, taking into account currency value and inflation compared to listed companies, was at the 87.5 percentile, which is a surprisingly high level of profit despite being significantly undervalued considering the size of the economy. In addition, during the agricultural immigration and land management period, the growth rate of net income for the period reached an average of 38%, and in particular, the growth rate of land and building income was a 75%. Furthermore, the net profit margin of 32% was in the top 1.3%, which was unusually high compared to today’s listed companies. In light of this absurdly high profitability, it is consistent with the explanation that, under Japanese preferential treatment and protection, ODC carried out food requisition and resource exploitation, contrary to the external claims of contributing to food production while promoting agricultural immigration and landowner management. Second, ODC carried out colonial projects actively rather than passively. The shift of its main business from highly profitable agricultural immigration and land management to development finance and holding companies was a choice that a for-profit company would not have made. Rather, as a state-run company, it played the role of a vanguard that faithfully carried out colonial policies. When decomposing the return on equity of ODC, its net profit margin is incredibly high at 98.7 percentile compared to listed companies during the agricultural management period, supporting its profitability in agricultural management. In contrast, its asset efficiency is only 10 percentile, indicating that its asset efficiency is tied up in assets such as farmland, stocks, and bond. The ODC’s financial leverage at 95 percentile, suggesting that its profitability in agricultural management is supported by its structure of taking on high risks with Japanese guarantees. All these compositions cannot be said to be the case for general companies. Therefore, this study shows that although it appeared to be a corporation established by issuing stocks, it was a colonial company that faithfully carried out colonial policies under the supervision and support of the Japanese government rather than for the sake of shareholders. The main findings of this paper suggest several implications, focusing on the main issues of Japanese colonial rule. First, in light of the case of ODC, it can be seen that the support and investment in industry according to the Japanese government’s colonial policy was a means of exploitation and was not decided in a way that was suitable for the Korean economic structure or helpful to Korean modernization. Second, ODC is widely recognized as a land-grabbing company, but its land-grabbing finance after 1917 and investment projects after 1934 are not well known. However, based on accounting data, this paper provides insight into ODC’s sources of income. ODC’s land management was the most important source of income from its establishment until its liquidation, and the source of its income came from free ownership of state-owned land, purchase at a low price, and unreasonably high rents. ODC is a state-run company that symbolizes Japanese colonial rule, and many studies on ODC have been conducted by historians an d economists from both Korea and Japan. However, the analysis of the business report, which is the most important basic data related to ODC’s role and management status in Joseon, has not been actively conducted. This study is significant in that it verifies ODC’s role and performance from an accounting perspective from the period of the Korean Empire when ODC was established to almost the entire period of Japanese colonial rule based on accounting figures reported in financial statements, which were tools outside the field of history.