Taxation and Bank Efficiency: Cross-Country Evidence

This paper investigates the relationship between the effective tax rate on bank income and bank profit efficiency. Our sample consists of 3,472 observations from 533 publicly quoted commercial banks operating in 46 countries between 2001 and 2009. We estimate a global frontier while controlling for various country-specific characteristics such as regulations, macroeconomic conditions, market concentration, and financial and overall development. The results indicate that a higher tax rate results in higher pre-tax profit efficiency. However, the relationship is non-linear, indicating that there is a point after which a further increase in taxation reduces bank profit efficiency. We also find that concentration in the banking sector enhances the effect of taxation on profit efficiency. Overall, the results provide some support to the tax-shifting hypothesis. However, there is no robust evidence that the impact of taxation on profit efficiency is influenced by the extent of private monitoring.     

Does Regulation in Credit,Labour and Business Matter for Bank Performance in the EU-10 Economies?

Cost efficiency scores for banks in ten new EU member countries of Central and Eastern Europe are estimated using a parametric approach (data envelopment analysis) for the period prior to and immediately following their accession (2000–2010). These are then used in both fixed effects and dynamic panels to estimate the impact of regulation on bank specific efficiency in the transition economies of the EU. Using the Fraser Index of Economic Freedom (Gwartney, Hall, and Lawson 2012) we find that, among all the indices of economic freedom, the composite regulation index that includes regulation in credit, labour and business has more importance for the banking sector as results suggest a positive and statistically significant impact on bank efficiency. By decomposing the regulation index into its three components (credit, business and labour regulation) we find that strict labour regulation is associated with lower bank cost efficiency while certain aspects of credit regulation such as foreign ownership and competition as well as private ownership are significantly associated with improved efficiency. The dynamic panel vector autoregression (VAR) results using impulse response functions and variance decomposition further support the validity of these results. These findings are valuable for both academics and policy makers in their attempts to understand the drivers of bank efficiency.     

Bank structure and mortgage rates: Implications for interstate banking

Competition in financial markets has been the subject of many studies in the area of market structure and performance. This paper analyzes the differences in mortgage rates between unit banking and branch banking states to consider the likely outcome of interstate banking on competition. A model of interest rate determination is developed which suggests that, at least in the mortgage market, interstate banking will, ceteris paribus, decrease competition if it lowers the number of competing firms and increases deposit concentration levels. Support is provided for the argument that only those states under statewide branching laws may receive more competitive environments from the spread of interstate banking.     

The integration of accession countries into EMU—Concerns about convergence

Accession countries willing to enter EU and EMU as soon as possible face concerns on the part of the EU about incomplete convergence. This paper looks into the progress of convergence à la Maastricht and argues that a broader measure of convergence is needed. An indicator is used to assess the convergence of accession countries in a broad sense and in comparison with a reference group of EMU member countries.     

Productivity,Employment and Growth in European Integration

We compare the evolution of key macroeconomic indices for the European Union (EU), viewed as a unified economy, with that of the USA and Japan for the period 1950–95, report the process of convergence in the EU, and analyze the effect of its potential enlargement through the accession of 10 Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC) that are in active negotiation for EU membership. The EU has followed a path of rising labor productivity, declining capital productivity and rising capital intensity typical of advanced capitalist economies. Its productivities in the 1990s lie between those of the USA and Japan. There is evidence of convergence of EU-15 relative labor productivity and capital intensity levels to those of the USA. Relative real wages also seem to be converging. Profit rates in all three economies fell, most rapidly before 1975. There is a general pattern of convergence in the EU members in the evolution of labor productivity, capital productivity, real wage, gross profit rate, investment per worker, consumption per worker and capital intensity. The evidence for a specific membership effect on convergence is weak. The CEEC have much lower relative labor and capital productivity than any other countries that have entered the EU. The process of development in the CEEC will have to follow an atypical path of increasing or constant capital productivity and rising labor productivity in order to converge to EU norms. EU membership might have a positive impact on the prospective economic growth in the CEEC in these respects, as the vehicle for the transmission of critical changes in technology and productive organization.     

Who Can Adjust to the Euro?

This study estimates potential exchange rate variation among 26 European countries during 1992–1998, as a proxy for the potential magnitude of adjustment they face to euro‐block membership, using the instrumental variable (IV) method, applying least squares cross‐section regression analysis based on optimal currency area theory. A currency union among Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Malta, the Netherlands and Slovenia is found to entail a relatively light burden of adjustment for its members. The current membership of other countries in the euro‐block is potentially very demanding on their societies in the long term. This study also compares currency boards and independent central banks as alternative monetary frameworks for disinflation policies. Based on a pooled time‐series, cross‐section dataset of the same countries and years currency boards are found to be more effective in reducing inflation in all countries except Belgium. Balancing EMU's credibility gains against its adjustment costs, Finland, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain seem like unstable members of the euro‐block. For all new EU member states except the Czech Republic, Malta, Slovenia and Slovakia the advice is to stay out of the euro‐block until their economies are liberalised and flexible enough to withstand major adjustments, and their societal interest groups supportive enough of these adjustments.     

Der deutsche Bankensektor

Although Germany’s banking sector has experienced a wave of consolidation, especially since the financial crisis, the country is still home to a high number of banking institutions. When domestic economic activity was sluggish in the mid-2000s, German banks searched for sources of income abroad; some of them have massively invested in structured products. As a consequence, the financial crisis of 2007–2009 has hit German banks harder than those from other eurozone countries. The European Commission has played a key role in restructuring the sector, asking in particular that banks which have received state aid strongly reduce their balance sheets — and ordering the liquidation of one of them. Since 2010 the German banking sector has returned to the profit zone and appears more robust thanks to an increase of equity and a reduction of balance sheets. The leverage ratio remains nevertheless significant, profitability remains low in a context of strong competition on the domestic market, and some banks find themselves deeply affected by the crisis of the shipping sector.     

The new EU countries and euro adoption

In the new member states of the EU which have not yet adopted the euro, previous adoption strategies have come under scrutiny. The spillovers and contagion from the global financial crisis revealed a new threat to the countries’ real convergence goal, namely considerable vulnerability to the transmission of financial instability to the real economy. This paper demonstrates the existence of extreme risks for real convergence and argues in favour of a new adoption strategy which does not announce a target date for the currency changeover and which allows for more flexible and countercyclical monetary, fiscal and wage policies.     

Real and nominal convergence in the central and east European accession countries

Following their accession to the EU, which is planned for May 2004, eight central and east European countries will subsequently strive for integration into the Eurosystem. The Eurosystem underlines the need for simultaneous real and nominal convergence as a prerequisite for integration into the euro area. But some of the acceding countries argue that, at least in the short to medium term, a strengthening of nominal convergence makes real economic convergence more difficult. The following paper investigates this issue by means of an empirical study and attempts to establish to what extent real and nominal convergence are compatible.     

Das Securities Market Programme — viele Vorteile für den Euroraum

The Eurosystem’s Securities Market Programme (SMP,) the purchase of government bonds of euro area countries strongly affected by the crisis, started in 2010 and ended in 2012. The SMP benefited all parties concerned – the Eurosystem, all euro area countries and the crisis countries. The positive experience with the SMP can be replicated in the private sector with the creation of an exchangetraded fund (ETF), a Smart Beta ETF - SMP Fund. Like the SMP, the SMP Fund would buy government bonds, according to the ECB capital key. As an ETF, the SMP Fund would have low costs. Profits above the German Bund benchmark would be shared: 80% to investors, 10% to the SMP Fund and 10% to advisers who recommend the purchase. The related risks would be reduced by the diversification of the SMP Fund, the financing mechanisms of the euro area, especially the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) and the banking union. The SMP Fund could support the euro area fiscal capacity and the EU capital markets union. Past and future SMP profits create a fiscal capacity for the euro area with an initial amount of 50 billion Euro.     

Neuausrichtung der Europapolitik

The economic power of the euro countries should be strengthened by growth incentives, in the form of an additional European growth fund, which should also be funded by financial transaction tax revenues. The current level of debt requires a strengthening of government revenues. Taxes must be collected more effectively, and tax harmonisation should eliminate imbalances in the EU. The banking union should be a central component of crisis management. Moreover, the lingering debt problem must be solved.     

Steuer(n) in die richtige Richtung? Betrachtungen zur Finanztransaktionssteuer

The plans to introduce a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) in several euro zone members is gradually taking shape. Even a projected tax collection in only eleven countries promises substantial new tax revenues, because the legislation provides few exemptions. Due to the different methods used by existing national financial taxes, their experience can neither prove the effectiveness nor the harmfulness of the new FTT. The alleged disadvantages, especially for banking and insurance clients as well as for smaller companies, appear to be over-stated. However, the control effects are so weak that future financial crises cannot be avoided solely by the tax. Nonetheless, the fiscal attractiveness and political expediency of the tax make its introduction likely.     

Competition in the banking sector: New evidence from a panel of emerging market economies and the financial crisis

This paper assesses competition across the banking systems in emerging market economies. The analysis employs the Panzar and Rosse (1987) methodology, spanning the period 2000–2012. The analysis emphasises the impact of the recent financial crisis on the extent of competition in these banking systems. The empirical findings are robust and consistent with those of previous studies, providing sufficient evidence in favour of monopolistic competition across all countries under investigation. The level of competition in these banking sectors seems to have undergone a significant decline after the recent financial crisis. This finding receives robust support from an alternative methodological approach.     

EMU and Trade Revisited: Long‐Run Evidence Using Gravity Equations

In this paper, we present evidence of the long‐run effect of the euro on trade for the twelve initial EMU countries for the period 1967–2008 from a double perspective. First, we pool all the bilateral combinations of trade flows among the EMU countries in a panel cointegration gravity specification. Second, we estimate a gravity equation for each of the EMU members vis‐à‐vis the other eleven partners. We apply panel cointegration techniques based on factor models that account for cross‐dependence and structural breaks. Whereas the joint gravity equation provides evidence on the aggregate effect of the euro on intra‐European trade, by isolating the individual countries, we assess which of the member countries have obtained a larger benefit from the euro. The results show that the euro has had a positive though small effect on trade. Belgium and Luxembourg, France and Italy are the countries more benefited from the introduction of the euro. The effects for exports to third countries are in general more moderate, and, with the exception of Greece, there is no evidence of diversion effects.     

世界各国电机能效政策介绍及能效水平对比分析

世界各国的电机能效标准中,强制性执行的有美国、欧盟、中国、澳大利亚等10多个国家和地区。本文结合我国电机能效标准,介绍了世界各主要国家和地区的电机能效政策及标准实施情况,并对各国正在执行的电机能效水平进行对比,找出我国电机能效水平与国际能效水平的异同与不足,以供出口电机企业参考。     

Competition among the regions in Euroland

Following the introduction of the euro, competition among individual EMU countries for jobs and capital investment is likely to be increasingly replaced by competition among regions. Will this enhance convergence of per capita incomes or will it, rather, contribute to widening the gap between the rich and the poor regions of Euroland?     

审慎监管有效性的实证研究——基于银行效率和风险的视角

基于2007～2013年我国商业银行面板数据,检验审慎监管指标与银行效率和风险的关系,从银行发展的视角对审慎监管有效性进行实证分析.研究发现;较高的资本充足率在降低银行信贷风险的同时,也导致其成本效率和利润效率下降;拨备覆盖率的增加有利于降低银行信贷风险,但却显著地提高了银行成本效率;存贷比监管不仅不能降低银行信贷风险和经营风险,还显著地增加了银行成本效率和利润效率,流动性比率对银行风险和银行效率的影响均不显著.这些结论表明,不同审慎监管工具对银行风险和效率的影响存在差别,部分审慎监管工具在降低银行风险的同时,也降低了银行效率,审慎监管的目标在效率和风险之间存在一定的取舍.     

开放经济条件下外资银行对我国商业银行效率影响研究

在开放经济条件下,外资银行已成为我国金融体系的重要组成部分。本文采用固定效应下的GLS法,运用面板数据实证分析了外资银行对我国商业银行效率的影响。研究发现,外资银行进入对我国商业银行效率具有显著的正面影响,改善了我国商业银行的收入、成本和利润状况。     

Large banks' efficiency in the single European market

This paper examines cost and profit efficiency of large banking firms by defining a common European frontier over the period immediately following the completion of the Single Market Programme in 1992. Despite a slight increase in cost efficiency, country-specific characteristics appear to play important roles in the explanation of cost efficiency scores and significant differences, including varying competitive conditions, seem to exist across European banking markets. In contrast, results derived from the estimation of an alternative profit function seem to suggest that the efficiency gap among countries decreased substantially over the years under study.     

Ownership Reform,Foreign Competition and Efficiency of Chinese Commercial Banks: A Non‐parametric Approach

Since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, the pressure for bank reforms has mounted as China ought to have fully opened up its financial market to foreign competition by 2006. Efficiency is key for domestic banks to survive in a liberalised environment, but it appears that the last hope for raising bank efficiency is through ownership reform. Whether ownership reform and foreign competition can solve China's banking problem remains to be tested. This paper aims to answer this question using a non‐parametric approach to analyse the efficiency changes of 15 large commercial banks during 1998–2005. We find that ownership reform and foreign competition have forced Chinese commercial banks to improve performance, as their total factor productivity rose by 5.6 per cent per annum. This coincides with the recent bullish Chinese stock markets led by three listed state‐owned commercial banks. Despite such encouraging results, we remain cautious about the future of Chinese banks, as the good results may have been artificially created with massive government support and the fundamentals of the banks may be still weak.