Exploring the sources of financial performance in Chinese banks: A comparative analysis of different types of banks

Since significantly organizational difference in Chinese banks, this study makes an attempt to investigate whether there exist some differences of the financial performance and its decomposed components for Chinese banks. We employ the decomposition of profit change model introduced by Grifell-Tatje and Lovell (2015, P215) and normalized price definition of Balk (2018) to develop a normalized profit change decomposition model which can well deal with the firms’ scale difference. This model also decomposes the normalized profit into the technical efficiency effect, technical effect, size effect, price and quantity margin effect, and price recovery effect. For the empirical evidence, we find that although there is an increase of profit gains, the profit growth rate decline by year. Furthermore, the productivity is not the main factor to expand profits, quantity margin effect also makes peer contributions. Finally, the productivity effect and its decomposed components present different functions in different kinds of Chinese banks.     

Inefficiency and heterogeneity in Turkish banking: 1990–2000

Recent studies have stressed the importance of privatization and openness to foreign competition for bank efficiency and economic growth. We study bank efficiency in Turkey, an emerging economy with great heterogeneity in bank types and ownership structures. Earlier studies of Turkish banking had three limitations: (i) excessive reliance on cost‐function frontier analyses, wherein volume of loans is a measure of banking output; (ii) pooling all banks or imposing ad hoc heterogeneity assumptions; and (iii) lack of a comprehensive panel data set for proper analysis of productivity and heterogeneity. We use an estimation–classification procedure to find likelihood‐driven classification of bank technologies in an 11‐year panel. In addition, we augment traditional cost‐frontier analysis with a labour‐efficiency analysis. We conclude that state banks are not particularly inefficient overall, but that they do utilize labour inefficiently. This partially supports recent calls for privatization. We also conclude that special finance houses (or Islamic banks) utilize the same technology as conventional domestic banks, and do so relatively efficiently. This suggests that they do not cause harm to the financial system. Finally, we conclude that foreign banks utilize a different technology from domestic ones. This suggests that one should not overstate their value to the financial sector. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The productivity and performance of Australia’s major banks since deregulation

The aim of this study is to present some measures of the performance of banks operating in Australia since the deregulation of the Australian financial system in early 1980s; including the periods of financial market instability (the early 1990s and mid to late 2000s). In undertaking this measurement two approaches will be used. The first simply applies standard financial indicators. The second approach applies data envelopment analysis (DEA), to determine Malmquist indices of the levels of and the changes in the efficiency and productivity of Australian banks. The empirical results demonstrate the effect of deregulation and periodic financial crisis’s on the performance of individual banks, and the major part of the Australian banking sector. Overall the productivity performance of the Australian banks tended to improve considerably in those periods of strongest economic growth (i.e. the mid 1980s and 2000s).     

Global bank complexity and financial fragility around the world

Using data for 123 countries from 1996 to 2020, we uncover the effect of foreign-owned banks’ geographic complexity on financial fragility in the context of financial liberalization. We compute a measure of foreign-owned banks’ geographic complexity for each country from data on the affiliate network of internationally active banking institutes. The financial effects of geographic complexity may help banks improve their survival by improving their solvency. After extensive testing for the sensitivity of the results, our main findings were threefold. First, a higher degree of geographic complexity of foreign-owned banks reduces the likelihood of a bank’s default, and these effects become more pronounced in low- and lower-middle-income countries. Second, the effects of financial liberalization vary across income groups. Third, the joint effects of foreign-owned banks’ geographic complexity and financial liberalization on financial fragility vary across forms of financial liberalization. Our findings have several policy implications: first, bank supervisors should consider the presence and structure of foreign bank ownership in their assessments; second, the government should take into account the level of economic development in choosing the proper form of financial liberalization; third, the government should promote financial freedom to strengthen the role of foreign-owned banks’ geographic complexity in alleviating financial fragility.     

A cross-country comparison of productivity growth using the generalised metafrontier Malmquist productivity index: with application to banking industries in Taiwan and China

This paper is an extension of the metafrontier Malmquist productivity index, which takes into account the effect of scale efficiency change in its decomposition for both the non-parametric and parametric frameworks. Meanwhile, the ‘catch-up’ in the index is also disintegrated as two components: pure technological catch-up and frontier catch-up. An empirical application that uses unbalanced panel data of the Taiwanese and Chinese commercial banking industry is also conducted under a parametric framework. The results reveal that the adverse scale efficiency change is the key factor to inducing the inferior productivity growth seen in Chinese banks compared with Taiwanese banks, which spotlights the importance of the scale efficiency change term on productivity measures. It also provides one possible explanation for the recent hot issue about the motives for the two shores of the Taiwan Straits advancing financial openness to each other and mutually signing a banking Memorandum of Understanding.     

Parametric Decomposition of a Generalized Malmquist Productivity Index

This paper provides a parametric decomposition of a generalized Malmquist productivity index which takes into account scale economies. Unlike Balk (2001), the contribution of scale economies to productivity change is evaluated without recourse to scale efficiency measures, which are neither bounded for globally increasing, decreasing, or constant returns to scale technologies nor for ray-homogeneous technologies. An empirical application using panel data from Spanish savings banks is included. This application shows the advantages of the suggested method compared to Balk's approach. The results show an increase of total factor productivity which can be mainly attributed to technical progress and the positive effect of returns to scale.     

Productivity changes in pre-crisis Western European banks: Does scale effect really matter?

Insofar as the completion of the Single Market for Financial Services, it has presented new challenges for European Banking industries. In this study, we use a recently developed generalized metafrontier Malmquist productivity index (gMMPI) to provide insights on productivity growth. We extend the gMMPI to broaden the index's capacity by decomposing various sources of productivity change in the metafrontier context. The sample contains commercial banks from 12 Western European countries prior to the recent financial crisis. A key advantage of our extension is that it introduces the role of scale effects. The empirical results show that an average bank's productivity growth arises mainly from technical changes and scale effects. Moreover, smaller and larger banks grow faster than medium ones. In addition, conservative banks tend to grow faster. These findings suggest that a more competitive and integrated financial market induced by financial deregulation is indeed able to improve banks’ productivity.     

基于环境负产出的能效动态Malmquist模型研究

本文旨在研究环境效率—能源效率—经济效率的"三位一体动态全要素生产率"。首先基于数据包络分析建立了环境约束下的能效动态Malmquist模型,定义了能效效率改变指数、污效效率改变指数和动态进步指数。通过对中国18个行业2000～2007年的数据分析,指出未考虑环境效应、动态效应的Malmquist模型会带来误判,进而揭示出在中国能效全要素生产率改变过程中,能源环境效应起到了不可忽略的作用,而动态效应则是最大的瓶颈,却没得到应有的重视。     

Efficiency and productivity of the US banking industry, 1998–2005: evidence from the Fourier cost function satisfying global regularity conditions

This paper provides estimates of bank efficiency and productivity in the United States, over the period from 1998 to 2005, using (for the first time) the globally flexible Fourier cost functional form, as originally proposed by Gallant ( 1982 ), and estimated subject to global theoretical regularity conditions, using procedures suggested by Gallant and Golub ( 1984 ). We find that failure to incorporate monotonicity and curvature into the estimation results in mismeasured magnitudes of cost efficiency and misleading rankings of individual banks in terms of cost efficiency. We also find that the largest two subgroups (with assets greater than 1 billion in 1998 dollars) are less efficient than the other subgroups and that the largest four bank subgroups (with assets greater than $ 400 million) experienced significant productivity gains and the smallest eight subgroups experienced insignificant productivity gains or even productivity losses. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Profit efficiency sources and differences among small and large U.S. commercial banks

Profit efficiency is an econometric financial performance measure of how well actual profitability compares to a best-practice frontier. We compare the profit efficiency of small (under 100 million in total assets), medium, and large (over100 million in total assets), medium, and large (over 1 billion) commercial banks for the period 1995 to 2001 and examine the sources of profit efficiency for each. We also consider whether banks of different sizes attain their profit efficiency in different ways. We find that small and large banks have quite different ways of attaining high profits.     

What factor contributes to productivity growth of Chinese city banks: The role of regional difference

This study pays more attentions to investigate the performance of Chinese city banks, which can make up the blanks large banks left in the financing market, further improving local economic development. The study modifies the profit productivity indicator of Juo et al. (2015) under the short-run assumption to measure the profit productivity and its components. Our study finds that there exists a significant difference among banks by regions, and the eastern regional city banks have a best profit efficiency, but decline more than the others. The decomposed component, price effect, plays a most important role to explain the profit productivity change.     

Banking efficiency in South East Europe: Evidence for financial crises and the gap between new EU members and candidate countries

In this study we compare the cost efficiency of banks in ten South East European countries and find out how differences in efficiency are related to EU membership. The results reveal a statistically significant cost efficiency gap between EU and non-EU banking systems in the region, where on average EU banking systems tend to be more cost efficient than their non-EU counterparts. In contrast to other similar studies analyzing banking efficiency in South East European countries, we also run β-convergence and σ-convergence tests, as proposed in the literature. Based on these tests we can draw conclusions concerning the existence of a catching-up effect, since the detected cost efficiency gap is closing predominantly because of adjustments on the side of the less efficient banks. Additionally, we found that during the 2008 global financial crisis, the average cost efficiency scores of banks in the region improved, which could be explained by enhanced incentives of bank managers for intensified cost optimization in banks in crisis times. Our results suggest that the institutional adjustments in the non-EU countries should continue towards EU standards, as the EU banking systems tend to dominate in terms of measured cost efficiency.     

Productivity,price recovery,capacity constraints and their financial consequences

Mining and fishing are both extractive industries, although one resource is renewable and the other is not. Miners and fishers pursue financial objectives, although their objectives may differ. In both industries financial performance is influenced by productivity and prices. Finally, in both industries capacity constraints influence financial performance, perhaps but not necessarily through their impact on productivity, and both industries encounter external as well as internal capacity constraints. In this study we develop an analytical framework that links all four phenomena. We use return on assets to measure financial performance, and our analytical framework is provided by the duPont triangle. We measure productivity change in two ways, with a theoretical technology-based index and with empirical price-based indexes. We measure price change with empirical quantity-based indexes. We measure internal capacity utilization by relating a pair of output quantity vectors representing actual output and full capacity output, and we develop physical and economic measures of internal capacity utilization. We also show how external capacity constraints can restrict the ability to reach full capacity output. The analytical framework has productivity change, price change and change in capacity utilization influencing change in return on assets.     

Productivity and efficiency dynamics in Indian banking: An input distance function approach incorporating quality of inputs and outputs

Banking technology is typically characterized by multiple inputs and multiple outputs that are associated with various attributes, such as different types of deposits, loans, number of accounts, classes of employees and location of branches. These quality differentials in inputs and outputs are mostly ignored in empirical studies. These omissions make the practical value of productivity studies in organizations like banks questionable because quality is a key component of performance. This paper proposes using hedonic aggregator functions (as a tool of aggregating inputs and outputs with quality attributes) within an input distance function framework and analyzes the impact of banking deregulation on efficiency and total factor productivity (TFP) change in the Indian banking industry using panel data for the period 1996–2005. Empirical results indicate that banks have improved their efficiency (from 61% in 1996 to 72% in 2005) during the post‐deregulation period, and the gain in efficiency of state‐owned banks has surpassed that of private banks. Improvement in capital base, as indicated by increased capital adequacy ratio, played an important role in ushering efficiency gain. The return to scale estimate suggests that state‐owned banks are operating far above their efficient scale and cost savings can be obtained by reducing their size of operations. Overall, TFP growth was above 3.5% annually. Both technical progress and technical efficiency change consistently played an important role in shaping TFP growth. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Analyzing the underlying dimensions of firm profitability

In this paper we decompose a traditional measure for firm's performance, return on sales, into four components that capture the impact of productivity, price recovery, product mix and capacity utilization, respectively, on a firm's profitability. The new measures are used as an illustration to explain changes in the performance of firms in the US telecommunications industry following deregulation. Changes in the overall profitability margin of these firms are explained by substantial but offsetting changes in their productivity, price recovery ability, product-mix maximization and capacity utilization, that have occurred as a consequence of deregulation. The new measures enable us not only to illustrate relative differences between firms in a given cross-section but also to shed light on how changes take place over time in the different components that underlie firms' profitability.     

The evolution of scale economies in US banking

Continued consolidation of the US banking industry and a general increase in the size of banks have prompted some policymakers to consider policies that discourage banks from getting larger, including explicit caps on bank size. However, limits on the size of banks could entail economic costs if they prevent banks from achieving economies of scale. This paper presents new estimates of returns to scale for US banks based on nonparametric, local‐linear estimation of bank cost, revenue, and profit functions. We report estimates for both 2006 and 2015 to compare returns to scale some 7 years after the financial crisis and 5 years after enactment of the Dodd–Frank Act with returns to scale before the crisis. We find that a high percentage of banks faced increasing returns to scale in cost in both years, including most of the 10 largest bank holding companies. Also, while returns to scale in revenue and profit vary more across banks, we find evidence that the largest four banks operate under increasing returns to scale.     

A Parametric Distance Function Approach for Malmquist Productivity Index Estimation

Malmquistindexes of productivity are generally estimated using index numbertechniques or non-parametric frontier approaches. The aim ofthis paper is to show that Malmquist indexes can be estimatedin a similar way using parametric-deterministic or parametric-stochasticfrontier approaches. To allow a multi-output multi-input technologyand for technical change in production, we adopt an output distancefunction which is specified in a translog form. We then showthat using the estimated parameters, several radial distancefunctions can be calculated and combined in order to estimateand decompose the productivity index. Finally, this approachis applied to a panel of Spanish insurance companies. The mainresults confirm those generally obtained for financial services:very low rates of growth and technical change in spite of a rapidderegulation process and expansion of activity.     

Financial stability of Islamic banking and the global financial crisis: Evidence from the Gulf Cooperation Council

Using a sample of 76 banks from the Gulf Cooperation Council region, we use accounting- as well as market-based measures of financial stability to examine whether Islamic banks outperformed conventional banks in the time of financial shocks during the period 2000–2013. We find that the difference between the two banking types was initially not significant during the GFC. However, when the financial shock spread to the real economy during the later phases of the crisis, Islamic banks suffered a significantly higher level of financial instability than conventional banks. This result holds true for large banks but not for small Islamic banks. Small Islamic banks demonstrated a relatively better handling of the economic downturn than large Islamic banks, supporting the argument that Islamic banks are more stable when they operate at a small scale but lose this stability when they increase their scale of operations. Hence, while Islamic banks may have escaped the consequences of highly volatile financial instruments, they were not spared from a major shock in the real economic sectors.     

An assessment of Portuguese banks’ efficiency and productivity towards euro area participation

This paper analyses the production technology of Portuguese banks during the 1992–2006 period through the estimation of a translog cost frontier. This period is of major interest because it covers Portugal’s euro area accession and its impact on the banking system. Hence, critical factors impacting the banking system are identified against the background of increasing financial integration prior to the financial crisis that started in 2007 and later translated into strains in some European sovereign debt markets. Banks are modelled as firms which produce loans and other earning assets, choosing the cost minimizing combination of labour, capital and interest bearing debt, subject to holding a predetermined level of equity. According to the results of this study, technological progress has shifted the cost frontier downwards throughout the period under consideration, whereas the distance at which banks have operated from the frontier seems to have remained constant. Further, increases in production under scale economies have also contributed to the recorded increase in productivity.     

Measuring technical and allocative efficiencies for banks in the transition countries using the Fourier flexible cost function

The transition economies are known to have quite different market structures from the market economies. State-owned banks accounts for a major part of the financial sector in East European countries before the transition period. Since the input prices of the sector are frequently under the control of those governments, the misallocated resources may incur the loss of economic efficiency. This paper attempts to gauge the technical and allocative efficiency using unbalanced panel data of 340 banks from 14 transition countries under the framework of the Fourier flexible shadow cost function. Accommodating technical and allocative efficiencies simultaneously, as suggested by Atkinson and Cornwell (Int Econ Rev 35:231–243, 1994a) and Kumbhakar and Wang (J Econom 134:317–340, 2006a), avoids potential specification errors and leads to consistent parameter estimates. The average total cost savings resulting from greater technical and allocative efficiency are around 28.31 and 7.13%, respectively. Foreign-owned banks are found to be the most economically efficient. The enforcement of financial liberalization does gradually improve upon the sample banks’ technical efficiency. The allocative inefficiency arises from over capitalization and excess funds. Scale diseconomies appear to prevail in the sample states with a few exceptions.