Bank Competition and its Determinants: Evidence from Indian Banking

Abstract

This paper measures the degree of bank competition in India using a sample of 70 commercial banks over the period 1996–2016. To assess the degree of competition, we estimate the market power of each bank in our sample employing three nonstructural measures: the Lerner index, the adjusted Lerner index, and the Boone indicator. Bank-wise and year-wise estimates of the marginal cost required in all these measures are obtained using the semi-parametric method. The paper further attempts to undertake a comprehensive assessment of competition in Indian banking and identifies various bank-specific, macroeconomic, structural, and contestability indicators, which are supposed to explain level and variation of the degree of competition over time. Empirical findings reveal that public-sector banks in India exercise a relatively higher degree of bank competition compared to private and foreign-sector banks. However, aggregate results support that the Indian banking system is competitive in general. Unlike the structure-conduct-performance paradigm, which advocates that a concentrated banking system impairs competitiveness, our findings reveal that concentration measures hardly exert any effect on bank competition. Rather, contestability measures play a significant role in the determination of bank competition.     

小企业加入非对称联盟动机对权力配置与绩效的影响——以水环境治理行业为例

以往有关联盟绩效的研究很少关注企业动机通过权力配置对绩效的多重影响，以及不同动机和权力配置的影响差异。以资源依赖理论和议价能力理论为基础，以中国245家水环境治理企业为样本，研究小企业加入联盟的动机通过感知位置权力与能力权力的配置，对非对称联盟创新绩效和财务绩效的联合效应。结果表明，战略动机通过感知权利互补和平衡促进技术创新；成本动机通过感知权利互补影响财务绩效，但无法通过感知权利平衡影响财务绩效。     

Experts’ perceptions of the sloping land conversion program in the Loess Plateau,China

China’s Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP) is the world’s largest payment for ecosystem services program for improving ecological conditions and farmers’ livelihood. Communicating the SLCP outcomes across diverse stakeholder groups in ecological, socio-economic, political and institutional contexts can facilitate the effective implementation of the new round of the SLCP. Experts from various fields involved in the SLCP have developed good connections with governments, agencies, and farmers; therefore they can play an invaluable role in informing urgent policy changes. This study is based upon 24 interviews with the SLCP experts with the aims of assessing their perceptions of ecological, economic, political and social impacts of the SLCP on the Loess Plateau of China, and then gathering their policy recommendations to ensure that the new round of the SLCP would be implemented efficiently. Content analysis based on the grounded theory is used in present study. Judging from expert-based consensual statements from this study’s interviews, the main concerns about the first round of the SLCP on the Loess Plateau are that the dramatic increase in the farmer’s income and livelihood is mainly from off-farm sources rather than the SLCP subsidy, that equitable government compensation is dependent on the outcome of the SLCP, that the aggressive SLCP causes soil drought which have negative effects on ecological restoration, and that the stakeholders’ interaction could be improved. Based on the analyses of the experts’ interviews, the recommendations are summarised as follows: strengthening the farmers’ environmental awareness and vocational skills, establishing multi-source financial supports and flexible compensation mechanisms, establishing participatory planning that requires stakeholder involvement especially farmers and insisting that scientific studies on the ecological restoration of the Loess Plateau must be shared with local governments and farmers.     

管理层权力制衡强度、债务约束与企业创新投资

企业创新是国家经济可持续增长的关键，受到管理层意愿的影响，因而需要对内部经营者的权力进行制衡。以2010-2018年我国A股上市公司为研究样本，实证检验管理层权力制衡强度对企业创新投资的影响，以及不同债务约束情境下高商业信用配置、高负债水平的调节效应，此外，还考察了产权性质的差异化影响。研究表明，管理层权力制衡强度越大，企业创新投资水平越高；高商业信用强化了该促进作用，而高负债水平弱化了该促进作用。进一步研究发现，管理层权力制衡强度与企业创新投资的关系在民企中更显著；国企能够更好地获得和运用商业信用，使其高商业信用对该关系的强化效应更显著；民企具有更强的债务约束，其高负债水平对该关系的弱化效应更明显。     

The Impact of Power Distance and Uncertainty Avoidance on Real Options Exercise: Potential for Suboptimal Time Delays and Value Destruction

Real options (RO) valuation has been promoted as a way to evaluate investment opportunities and make investment decisions that takes into account the value of managerial flexibility in the face of uncertainty. Although RO enjoys a substantial body of literature considering its application and suitability in different situations, the impact of national culture on the application of RO has received little attention. Values embedded in national culture affect the behavior of managers. In particular, these values play a role in how managers frame information, communicate, and make decisions, directly and indirectly affecting behavior through cultural layers such as organizational culture. National culture, therefore, can systematically affect the application of RO, potentially leading to suboptimal outcomes. In this article, we hypothesize how 2 particularly relevant dimensions of culture, power distance and uncertainty avoidance, affect RO exercise, and estimate the magnitude suboptimality of these effects using a model we develop for the case of a put option. Our estimates suggest RO may not always be a superior valuation approach to net present value for national cultures with certain characteristics.     

Mediating urban transition through rural tourism

This study examines China’s urban–rural transition in the process of development and change. Regarding tourism as a discourse of difference, it focuses on a rural ethnic community, Jiabang, in Southwest China. It aims to highlight the role of tourism in providing a stimulus for the creation of a local group identity that subverts wider discourses of rural areas. With the goal of understanding how toured places are imagined, presented and consumed, this study utilises mixed data sources collected from tourism promotional materials and ethnographic fieldwork. The findings suggest that the forces behind the touristic place creation and consumption are both integral to and the result of the changing attitudes and perceptions of people and places in contemporary China.     

Socioeconomic determinants of farmland value in India

Developing countries have achieved remarkable overall economic diversification and growth during the last few decades, but farmland has remained a prime pillar of the livelihood support system of resource poor people in the rural areas of these countries. For these people, land is still the most important resource as it has multiple utilities such as a symbol of social standing, collateral value and a reserve capital asset for emergencies. Agricultural land assumes different values for different owners. This study establishes the criticality of age, education level, size of family workforce, dependency on agricultural income, productivity of land and location of farmland in influencing perception of value of farmland. Ignoring these factors creates a gap in the value of farmland as perceived by the farmland owner and the government. Knowledge of these factors may help in making appropriate adjustments in government declared prices of farmland for determining appropriate land compensation rate for a specific location.     

火力发电厂中基于光纤传感技术的火灾报警系统设计

针对国内外电厂对缆式线型感温的设计要求,突出了线型感温探测的重要性。从光纤感温探测的原理开始,对整套系统进行了结构性研究。主要研究了系统结构、探测光缆、控制器等组件。结合拉曼散射原理,剖析温度变化引起探测光缆的吸收和反吸收效应;强调了光学感温探测系统的应用优势和安装条件等。最后结合实体项目,分析对比了传统感温电缆和光学感温探测系统在实际工程应用中的优缺点,并提出了优化方案,以提高火灾报警系统的工作效率。     

The paradoxes of risk management in the banking sector

This paper uses empirical evidence to examine the operational dynamics and paradoxical nature of risk management systems in the banking sector. It demonstrates how a core paradox of market versus regulatory demands and an accompanying variety of performance, learning and belonging paradoxes underlie evident tensions in the interaction between front and back office staff in banks. Organisational responses to such paradoxes are found to range from passive to proactive, reflecting differing organisational, departmental and individual risk culture(s), and performance management systems. Nonetheless, a common feature of regulatory initiatives designed to secure a more structurally independent risk management function is that they have failed to rectify a critical imbalance of power - with the back office control functions continuing to be dominated by front office trading and investment functions. Ultimately, viewing the 'core' of risk management systems as a series of connected paradoxes rather than a set of assured, robust practices, requires a fundamental switch in emphasis away from a normative, standards-based approach to risk management to one which gives greater recognition to its behavioural dimensions.     

经济发展方式转型与经济软实力空间分布关联研究——以河南18个省辖市区域为例

经济软实力是决定经济发展方式转型的关键因子,经济软、硬实力的不同配置决定经济发展方式类型。经济软实力不仅内在具有推动经济发展方式转型的能力,而且还具有实现其转型的内在机理。通过河南省区域经济软实力空间分布及其与区域发展指数关联的实证分析,证明以提升经济软实力促进区域经济发展方式转变是经济发展的一种必然规律。