Risk and efficiency in the Central and Eastern European banking industry under quantile analysis

This paper estimates cost efficiency in the banking industry of 11 Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries over the period 1998–2005 using a quantile regression analysis. Our purpose is to investigate for the first time whether cost efficiency in CEE banks differs across quantiles of the conditional distribution. We employ stochastic frontier analysis across quantiles using the Distribution-Free Approach. The reported evidence demonstrates lower efficiency scores for higher conditional distributions. The paper goes further into a second-stage analysis to investigate how risk, measured by non-performing loans and loans loss provisions, affects bank efficiency across quantiles. This second-stage analysis finds that risk asserts a negative impact on cost efficiency, especially in high-order quantiles. Finally, the paper investigates the relationship between bank-specific ‘z’ variables, such as structural reforms, bank concentration and profitability, and cost efficiency across quantiles.     

Firm growth and efficiency in the banking industry: A new test of the efficient structure hypothesis

In this paper we propose a new test of the efficient structure (ES) hypothesis, which predicts that efficient firms come out ahead in competition and grow as a result. Our test has significant advantages over existing ones, because it is more direct, and can jointly test the so-called quiet-life hypothesis, which predicts that in a concentrated market firms do not minimize costs. We then apply this test to large banks in Japan. Consistent with the ES hypothesis, we find that more efficient banks become larger. We also find that market concentration reduces banks’ efficiency, which supports the quiet-life hypothesis. These findings imply that there is an intriguing growth–efficiency dynamic throughout banks’ life cycle, although our findings also suggest that the ES hypothesis dominates the quiet-life hypothesis in terms of economic impact.     

Dynamic technical and allocative efficiencies in European banking

This paper examines the performance of European banks during the pre-crisis and post-crisis periods, both in terms of technical and allocative efficiencies. We use an innovative Bayesian dynamic frontier model that: (1) distinguishes between short-run and long-run performance; and (2) provides impulse response functions to examine the dynamic effect of shocks in technical and allocative inefficiencies. Based on a rich sample of European banks, we show that while there was a drop in efficiency for most countries following the crisis, the long-run results suggest improvement both in terms of technical and allocative efficiencies. The impulse response functions also show that in the case of shocks in the system, banks seem to revert back to these long-run allocative efficiency scores. We discuss the results in terms of the current financial crisis and provide interesting implications for the European banking industry. We also discuss the determinants of technical and allocative efficiencies. (We would like to thank Professor Allen N. Berger and Professor Andy Mullineux for their valuable comments on the early version of this paper.)     

An Empirical Investigation of Eastern European Bond Markets

We examine the value of Eastern European emerging bond markets to global fixed income managers. In an environment where bonds from traditional developed markets are offering modest yields, emerging market bonds with attractive yields are becoming more popular with institutional managers. Furthermore, the returns on these bonds exhibit low correlations with traditional fixed income investments and thus offer opportunities for portfolio diversification. We develop a multifactor forecasting model and estimate its parameters using a dynamic Kalman filter procedure. The forecasts are then used to construct optimal mean–variance portfolios with and without emerging market bonds. We find that the portfolios that include emerging market bonds have significantly higher Sharpe ratios.     

Institutions,banking structure and the cost of debt: new international evidence

This paper analyses the effect of institutions and the structure of the banking system on the cost of debt for a sample of firms from 37 countries. The cost of debt decreases with the rule of law, the protection of creditors’ rights and the weight of banks in the economy. Bank financing and bank concentration have a positive differential effect on the cost of debt in those countries where the financial difficulties of banks are greater. Legal enforcement, the protection of creditors’ rights and the weight of bank financing have a greater influence in countries with a lower degree of economic development.     

The efficiency and the conduct of European banks: Developments after 1992

We assess the efficiency of the European banking sector in the 5-year period following the implementation of the Second Banking Directive of the European Union (EU). We first determine the degree of cost efficiency of EU banks in 1993-1997. After that, we explore to what extent efficient European banks are managed differently than their inefficient peers. Our datasets comprise 5 years of observations on 1347 savings and 873 commercial banks. We use the new recursive thick frontier approach (RTFA) method to establish our results. We find that structural factors, such as technological progress or increased bank competition, have lowered the cost base of banks by about 5% annually during the sample period. Managerial inability to control costs (X-inefficiency) is with 17-25% the main source of bank inefficiency in the EU. Managerial efficiency varies a great deal within Europe, and there seems to be no tendency towards convergence. We find that small savings banks can exploit economies of scale. The EU savings bank sector would cut costs by about 3% if small savings banks merged.     

Cost efficiency in the European securities settlement and depository industry

We examine whether the European settlement and custody institutions operate in an efficient way. To do this, we start from an analytically founded discussion regarding the activities performed by the operators in this sector. Based on the insights obtained, we estimate both a translog cost function and a constant elasticity of substitution – quadratic cost function. From the results obtained, there clearly are economies of scale in this industry. Moreover, also economies of scope between the activities performed are present. These findings imply that probably further consolidation is ahead, and that separating certain activities from others can only be done at a cost in terms of efficiency.     

Boundaries of the firm: evidence from the banking industry

Agency theory implies that asset ownership and decision authority are complements. Using 1998 data from Texas commercial banks, we test whether the likelihood of local ownership of bank offices increases with the importance of granting local managers greater decision authority (for example, due to location or customer base). Our empirical evidence is consistent with this hypothesis. It suggests that complementarities between strategy and organizational structure can foster differentiation among firms in terms of location, customers, and products. It also supports the growing view that small locally-owned banks have a comparative advantage over large banks within specific environments.     

Systemic risk in the European sovereign and banking system

We investigate the systemic risk of the European sovereign and banking system during 2008–2013. We utilize a conditional measure of systemic risk that reflects market perceptions and can be intuitively interpreted as an entity’s conditional joint probability of default, given the hypothetical default of other entities. The measure of systemic risk is applicable to high dimensions and not only incorporates individual default risk characteristics but also captures the underlying interdependent relations between sovereigns and banks in a multivariate setting. In empirical applications, our results reveal significant time variation in systemic risk spillover effects for the sovereign and banking system. We find that systemic risk is mainly driven by risk premiums coupled with a steady increase in physical default risk.     

Determinants of loan securitization in European banking

Analyzing 75 securitizing and non-securitizing stock-listed banks in the EU-13 plus Switzerland over the period from 1997 to 2010, this paper provides empirical evidence that loan securitization in Europe is a composite decision based on bank-specific as well as market- and country-specific determinants. In addition, we find that these determinants remarkably change when separately investigating securitization transactions during the pre-crisis and crisis period. Moreover, results from several subsample regressions reveal that determinants of loan securitizations in Europe depend on the transaction type, the underlying asset portfolio and the regulatory and institutional environment under which banks operate.     

Testing the Purchasing Power Parity Hypothesis for the New Member and Candidate Countries of the European Union: Evidence from Lagrange Multiplier Unit Root Tests with Structural Breaks

This paper investigates the validity of purchasing power parity (PPP) for the eleven Central and East European transition countries and three market economy countries, Cyprus, Malta, and Turkey. Unlike previous studies on PPP, this study uses Lagrange multiplier (LM) unit root tests that incorporate structural breaks in the data series. The findings indicate that in cases of one and two structural breaks, for a U.S. dollar-based real exchange rate series, there is little evidence supporting the validity of PPP. For a deutsche mark-based real exchange rate series, for the cases of both one and two breaks, there is evidence of stationarity of real exchange rates for eight sample countries, which is consistent with PPP. The results also indicate that the estimated half-life of a shock to the real exchange rate ranges from 1.25 (15.05 months) to 2.72 (32.72 months) years across countries. The empirical findings may provide direction for policy makers to coordinate monetary policies for the process of European monetary integration.     

This time is different: Causes and consequences of British banking instability over the long run

This paper addresses three questions: (1) How severe were the episodes of banking instability experienced by the UK over the past two centuries? (2) What have been the macroeconomic indicators of UK banking instability? and (3) What have been the consequences of UK banking instability for the cost of credit? Using a unique dataset of bank share prices from 1830 to 2010 to assess the stability of the UK banking system, we find that banking instability has grown more severe since the 1970s. We also find that interest rates, inflation, lending growth, and equity prices are consistent macroeconomic indicators of UK banking instability over the long run. Furthermore, utilising a unique dataset of corporate-bond yields for the period 1860 to 2010, we find that there is a significant long-run relationship between banking instability and the credit-risk premium faced by businesses.     

Banking merchants and banking houses: the hidden key to the workings of the Spanish banking system in the nineteenth century

The historical study of the Spanish nineteenth-century banking system has been almost exclusively carried out through a consideration of the experiences of the joint-stock banks. But the very scarce number of these, and their territorial distribution, makes it necessary for us to look for other financial intermediaries who were able to satisfy the demand for banking services in that time and place. We demonstrate that this role was fulfilled by the banking merchants and banking houses operating through individual firms and partnerships. The object of this work is to make their activities better known and vindicate their importance. The sources used for the study are mainly the accounting documents of several banking houses.     

The impact of mean reversion of bank profitability on post-merger performance in the banking industry

This research study examines the tendency for serial correlation in bank holding company profitability, finding significant evidence of reversion to the industry mean in profitability. The paper then considers the impact of mean reversion on the evaluation of post-merger performance of bank holding companies. The research concludes that when an adjustment is made for the mean reversion, post-merger results significantly exceed those of the industry in the first 5 years after the merger.     

Development and efficiency of the banking sector in a transitional economy: Hungarian experience

The paper analyzes the experiences and developments of Hungarian banking sector during the transitional process from a centralized economy to a market-oriented system. The paper identifies that early reorganization initiatives, flexible approaches to privatization, and liberal policies towards foreign banks’ involvement with the domestic institutions helped to build a relatively stable and increasingly efficient banking system. Foreign banks and banks with higher foreign bank ownership involvement were associated with lower inefficiency.     

The impact of the euro on risk exposure of the world’s major banking industries

In this paper, we examine if the introduction of the euro impacted the risk exposures, risk premiums and, hence, the cost of equity of the banking industry of 11 Eurozone countries, five non-Eurozone European countries, and three non-European countries. Using a multi-factor asset-pricing model that allows time variation in the risk exposures, we find a statistically significant and economically large decline in the cost of equity of the banking industry across the three groups of countries following the introduction of the euro. Though we find an increase in the market and currency exposures after the euro, consistent with increased competition among banks, the fall in the cost of equity arises from an economically large decline in the currency premium. As expected, the Eurozone banking industry experienced the largest decrease. Our results are inconsistent with the argument that increased banking competition arising from the legislative changes accompanying the introduction of the euro would result in an increase in the overall risk premium of the banking sector.     

Convergence of Bank Efficiency in Emerging Markets: The Experience of Central and Eastern European Countries

In this study, we investigate the effect of the European Union integration process on banks' efficiency and the convergence of cost efficiency across banking systems from Central and Eastern European countries for the period 2004-10. We observe large differences in the levels of cost efficiency among national banking systems, and we notice an increase in banking efficiency for all banking systems until 2008. However, starting with 2009, the evolution of the average scores of cost efficiency declines. The results provide evidence of β-convergence and σ-convergence in terms of cost efficiency among the banking systems, especially during the period 2009-10.     

Determinants of risk in the banking sector during the European Financial Crisis

Risk assessment in the banking sector has been a prominent topic in the banking literature and has gained attention especially since the recent financial crises. In particular, the European crisis, which was the first since the formation of the Eurozone, underlined a number of significant problems and increased concerns on the tail or crash risk of banks. In the present study, we seek to examine whether information asymmetry, the importance of banks in the financial system and systemic risk play significant roles in the evolution of stock crashes in the banking sector. Information asymmetry is proxied by opacity, the importance of a bank in a financial network is proxied by network centrality, and systemic risk is proxied by clustering. The research framework considers a number of regulatory, reporting and financial market factors that have also been determined to relate to stock crashes and shows that all of the above factors are related to (idiosyncratic) stock crash risk under specific conditions.     

Strategic Management of Cost Efficiencies in Networks: Cross-country Evidence on European Branch Banking

This paper examines the role of cost efficiencies on efficient management of branch networks in the contemporary European commercial banking industry. The analysis, which could be generalised to other industries, indicates that larger banks are more likely to have heavily utilised branch networks than smaller banks and to exhibit fewer cost efficiencies from building more branches. The finding of this result within each country suggests the role of internal firm size regardless of competitive conditions. The similar cross‐country finding suggests the impact of factors such as market structure/concentration levels and type of non‐price competition. Larger banks can generate less income per unit asset deployed. Cross‐border efficiency might be improved by greater use of banks with under‐used networks by banks with over‐used networks.     

The value relevance of IFRS in the European banking industry

The main purpose of the paper is to investigate the market valuation of accounting information in the European banking industry before and after the adoption of IFRS, the latest version of International Accounting Standards. In a value relevance framework, we apply panel methods to a multiplicative interaction model, in which the partial effects of earnings and book value on share prices are conditional on the adoption of IFRS. According to our evidence, the IFRS introduction enhanced the information content of both earnings and book value for more transparent banks. By contrast, less transparent entities did not experience significant increase in the value relevance of book value.