Inefficiency in the Spanish Cooperative Banking Sector

This paper researches X-inefficiency and scale economies in Spanish cooperative banking between 1988 and 1996, using the stochastic cost frontier methodology. The Translog cost function, with three outputs and three inputs, is used to measure X-inefficiencies across time and size. During this period of time there is no important reduction in inefficiency levels, so deregulation and internationalization has little effect on the Spanish cooperative banking market. We can see that large cooperative banks are less inefficient than small ones, indicating that it would be convenient to increase the size of these kinds of banks in order to reduce inefficiencies in this sector. We also find scale economies during this period.     

中国国有商业银行效率分析

银行业效率研究是近20年以来国际金融界和各国监管当局研究的重点课题之一.近几年国内学者对于商业银行效率测评以及规模经济和影响效率因素分析也进行了深入的研究.无论是比较银行盈利能力和资产质量,还是分析其规模效应、X-无效率,都可以看出,我国国有商业银行存在着普遍的效率低下问题,其实质就在于对于资源配置的效率低下.     

Market Structure, Efficiency and Rising Consolidation of the Banking Industry in the Euro Area

Four factors are fundamentally altering the financial landscape in the Euro Area: deregulation, further disintermediation provoked by the common currency and common monetary policy, technological advances and increased competition from non‐bank intermediaries. Faced with the combined pressures of these factors, banks are devising strategies to do business in this new environment. They respond by attempting to improve their efficiency and/or market power through consolidation and balance sheet restructuring. This article examines whether the ongoing process of consolidation should be rationalized on the basis of the benefits of economies of scale and scope or to the attempt of banks to tackle excess capacity problems. Empirical findings reveal a significant effect of efficiency measures on banking profitability indices. Also, we argue that further disintermediation caused by common currency and common monetary policy poses a threat to banks' profitability. Finally, these results have some implications for merger and antitrust policy as well as for supervisory and regulatory practices.     

银行效率的决定因素：跨国实证

本文基于1990—2009年间68个主要国家和经济体的面板数据，从管理效率、市场竞争性和盈利能力三个基本方面对影响一国银行业效率的相关因素进行了实证分析。实证结果表明：从宏观经济政策来看，保持宏观经济的持续稳定增长，稳步推进资本账户开放，将有助于提高一国银行业的整体效率；从银行产业发展来看，银行业效率的提高需要在保持适度资产规模和产业集中度的基础上，防止银行信贷的过度扩张和银行危机的发生；从制度文化发展来看，加强产权保护，促进社会信用文化水平的提升，将有助于一国银行业效率的整体提升。     

Estimation of scale and scope economies in multiproduct banking: evidence from the Fourier flexible functional form with panel data

An empirical study is conducted on scale and scope economies for Taiwan's banking industry with panel data using a Fourier flexible cost function developed by Gallant and a translog cost function, both of which take economic efficiency into account. It is found that the Fourier form is more appropriate than the traditional translog form in fitting the data, and that various efficiency measures computed using the Fourier function are compatible with each other, while those computed using the translog function are not. The Fourier evidence shows that sample banks continue to enjoy economies of scale, and exhibit scope diseconomies, which indicates that greater product diversification can reduce banking costs through product-mix economies. Banks may benefit from further diversifying their line of financial services.     

Scale economies in manufacturing: Problems of robust estimation

The purpose of the paper is to develop a cost frontier model and its robust estimation for analyzing the impact of scale economies in the manufacturing sector. Indirectly our estimates provide a test of the new growth theory which emphasizes the role of increasing returns to scale as a major force in the sustained growth process. An illustrative application to the South Korean manufacturing sector finds strong supportive evidence for significant scale economies, though in recent years it may be declining for the Korean economy.     

Testing for profitability and contestability in banking: evidence from Austria

The paper investigates the determinants of banking profitability and banking market conditions in Austria. We conduct a panel econometric analysis which allows for testing the hypotheses which have become the most prominent in the literature on bank profitability: the structure–conduct–performance hypothesis, the efficient‐structure hypothesis and the relative market‐power hypothesis. Further, we test whether Austrian banking markets are, on average, contestable. A newly compiled dataset covering more than 700 Austrian banks ranging over the period from 1995 to 2002 is used to carry out these econometric analyses. The empirical findings support the view that the Austrian banks do exert, on average, some local market power. However, the gains in terms of excess profits are rather minor as a result of low deterrence powers of the incumbent banks.     

Market structure, cost of intermediation and profitability in commercial banking

The effects of market structure on the relative cost of intermediation and on profitability of banks are re-examined using market data in a unit banking environment. Unlike earlier studies, market concentration is shown to affect both measures of bank performance.     

Measuring the degree of competition in Pakistan’s banking industry: an empirical analysis

Pakistan’s banking industry has gone through significant transformation from being in a heavily state regulated and controlled environment to a more liberalized market structure in recent years. This liberalization of banking industry in Pakistan has raised concerns over the dominant banks’ exercise of market power on account of increase in market concentration due to mergers and acquisitions, high profitability in banking sector and increasing interest rate spread. Present study therefore explicitly tests the market conduct of banks using quarterly panel data of 30 banks from 2004 to 2012 and employing Panzar–Rosse, Bresnahan–Lau, Hall–Roeger and Boone’s approaches to study market power. Our findings suggest that Pakistan’s banking industry is working in a competitive environment and we find little evidence for the exercise of market power by the dominant banks. Our results remain robust across all these approaches to measure market power. These findings indicate that the liberalization and deregulation of Pakistan’s banking industry has been successful in improving the competitive conditions in the market.     

Explaining the Concentration-Profitability Paradox

This paper explains an empirical paradox which is often found, but generally ignored: a significant negative econometric relationship between profitability and market share concentration. The phenomenon can appear when there is a negative correlation between market share and costs—for example due to economies of scale. I show that concentration becomes an indicator for the cost competitiveness of direct rivals within an industry. Profitability of a given firm is undermined if price correlates positively with average industry costs (Classical natural prices) and frictions like sunk costs make an industry exit expensive for firms. This idea also explains the frequent findings of highly persistent profit rate differentials.     

Scale Economies In Cellular Telephony: Size Matters

Strategic positioning and potential cost savings are popular explanations for growing consolidation in the wireless telephone industry. This research estimates economies of scale for a large panel of GTE Wireless cellular market areas. Contrary to previous findings, our results indicate scale economies exist throughout the system and provide a rationale for the industry trend of consolidation.     

Determinants of bank cost efficiency in transition economies: evidence for Latin America,Central and Eastern Europe and South-East Asia

In this study, we adopt Wang’s (2002) heteroscedastic stochastic frontier model, which allows us to investigate bank cost efficiency and to measure the marginal effects of some variables on both the level and the variability of inefficiency. In recent years, the financial crisis has significantly affected the banking systems of the transition countries. Hence, the efficiency is of major importance for the stability of the banks. Regarding the determinants of efficiency, we find evidence that banks that follow a more cautious strategy, characterized by lower risk appetite and average expectations on profitability, have higher cost efficiency. We also find that traditional deposit-taking and loan-making still remain the most efficient activity of the banks. Additionally, the results showed that a higher Gross Domestic Product growth rate implies an increase in the inefficiency level, indicating an unsustainable bank management behaviour, which in periods of economic growth adopts policies that can generate inefficiency in order to gain market share and to obtain higher bonuses. Country cost efficiency results show significant differences. The banking systems in transition countries in South Eastern Asia appear to have a higher cost efficiency level. Also, the effects of the financial crisis were less significant in this region.     

Economies of superscale in commercial banking

Most previous studies of scale economies in banking have excluded banks larger than $1 billion in assets. Thus study, by contrast, estimates cost functions for the 100 largest US commercial banks. ‘Hedonic’ terms are incorporated to correct for the aggregated nature of the Call Report data available for these banks. In addition, we attempt to quantify the cost benefit of diversification in the model. We estimate efficient bank scale to range from $15 billion to $37 billion in total assets, a thousandfold increase over some previous findings. These results are supported by comparison of actual average costs, as well as by casual historical observation and the level of widespread concern over interstate banking. Our findings suggest some cost incentive or benefit to expansion or consolidation among large regional banks, including interstate expansion or consolidation.     

Bank efficiency in South‐Eastern Europe

This study examines the cost and profit efficiency of banking sectors in six transition countries of South‐Eastern Europe over the period 1998–2008. Using a stochastic frontier approach, our analysis reveals that the average cost efficiency of South‐Eastern European banks is 68.59 percent, and the average profit efficiency is 53.87 percent. Regressions on the determinants of bank efficiency show that foreign banks are characterized by higher profit efficiency but lower cost efficiency, and government‐owned banks are associated with lower profit efficiency than domestic private banks. However, the efficiency gap between foreign‐, domestic private‐ and government‐owned banks narrows over time. We also find that the market power of a bank has a positive association with both cost and profit efficiency. Institutional development, proxied by progress in banking regulatory reforms, privatization and enterprise corporate governance restructuring, also has a positive impact on bank efficiency.     

Economies of scale and scope in Flemish secondary schools

This study estimates a multiproduct translog cost function for the entire population of 1011 Flemish secondary schools in order to determine the degree of ray and product specific (dis)economies of scale as well as the degree of (dis)economies of scope. Three types of schools and seven major study fields can be distinguished. Student loads in these study fields are used as outputs produced by the schools. Evidence is found for ray economies of scale for the three types of schools, even at output levels of 300% of the actual means. Although the cost elasticities of six out of seven outputs are close to zero, most of the values indicating the degree of product specific economies of scale are negative (suggesting diseconomies of scale). However, this can be explained by the considerable scope effects which are incorporated in the definition of the product specific economies of scale.     

Joint estimation of the Lerner index and cost efficiency using copula methods

This paper deals with the estimation of market power, measured by the Lerner index, and cost efficiency at the bank level, using the stochastic frontier (SF) methodology. Both market power and cost efficiency are estimated jointly in a single step. We use the copula method to incorporate dependence between market power and cost efficiency. In contrast to earlier works that used a two-step approach, the SF approach used herein estimates a bank-specific nonnegative Lerner index free from random shocks. We showcase the advantages of our proposed methodology in terms of an empirical study on the banking sectors of five former communist countries during the period 2000–2008. Compared to the conventional approach, our model gives higher mean values of the Lerner index and smaller standard deviations. Further, we find a significant positive relationship between cost efficiency and market power of banks, thereby rejecting the “quiet life hypothesis.”     

混业经营条件下银行集中与效率--基于面板单位根与面板协整分析

基于亚洲国家的面板数据,运用面板单位根与面板协整方法研究混业经营下银行集中与银行效率的关系.理论研究表明银行集中会带来两种相反作用的效应:规模经济和专业化经济,银行集中度提高所带来规模经济上升促进银行效率;相反专业化经济下降损害银行效率.实证分析(1)支持理论所表明的均衡关系,银行效率与银行集中等变量存在协整关系.(2)混业经营条件下,银行集中与银行效率有显著的正相关关系,规模经济效应大于专业化经济效应.因此混业条件下,提高银行效率必须寻求有效途径,加强竞争,适度提高商业银行的集中度.     

Economies of Scale in Australian Banks 1978–1990

This paper examines economies of scale in Australian banks. A bank multi-product cost function is estimated using a translog functional form with data drawn from twelve banks spanning the period 1978 to 1990. Different formulations of the model are estimated. Results prove sensitive to estimation assumptions and data definitions however they support the presence of economies of scale for Australian banking in this period     

Effects of horizontal consolidation under bilateral imperfect competition between processors and retailers

This article considers bilateral imperfect competition between processors and retailers to estimate the trade off between market power and cost efficiency. The model is based on pricing rules from a firm's profit maximization and nests both oligopoly and oligopsony models. An empirical analysis for US beef processors and retailers suggests that processors tend to exercise oligopsony market power in procuring cattle, but they are unlikely to exercise market power on retailers. When retailers and processors are considered as one integrated sector, efficiency effects from the increased concentration in the US beef packing industry are slightly larger than market power effects. When processors’ market power is considered separately from retailers’ market power, the difference between cost saving and market power effects becomes greater. The cost elasticity estimate, 0.99, indicates that a further merger would result in little economies of scale in the future. Therefore, although we find that efficiency effects are currently larger than market power effects, a further increase in concentration in the US beef processing industry could narrow the gap between the two effects.     

中国商业银行市场势力、效率及其福利效应

文章对中国商业银行1998-2007年的市场势力与效率之间的关系及其福利效应进行了初步研究。结果表明,运用随机前沿成本函数所估计的贷款边际成本大于存款边际成本,四大国有银行的市场势力勒纳指数明显大于股份制商业银行,国有银行行政性市场势力不容忽视。在此基础上,文章估计了基于市场势力的社会福利效应,因银行成本无效率带来的福利损失远大于因市场势力而引致的社会福利损失。检验安逸生活假设表明,贷款市场拒绝安逸生活假设,而存款市场接受安逸生活假设。贷款市场势力对银行业发展具有一定的负面作用,而银行生产率的提高促进了银行业的持续发展。