The composite cost function and efficiency in giant Japanese banks

This study provides further empirical investigation, in the context of giant Japanese banks, of the recent claim by Pulley and Braunstein (1992, A composite cost function for multiproduct firms with an application to economies of scope in banking, Review of Economics and Statistics 74, 221–230), that their new composite model for the multiproduct cost function has important advantages over the separable quadratic, generalized translog and standard translog models. In addition to assessing the composite model's relative ability in measuring global scope and scale economies, the study also extends the P-B analysis to assess measurement of product-specific scope and scale economies, pairwise cost complementarities between outputs, changes in the marginal costs of outputs and technological change. The results appear to confirm P-B's chain. The persistent finding of scale economies for large Japanese banks is also investigated and confirmed.     

A Cost Indirect Evaluation of Productivity Change in UK Universities

The study provides an empirical analysis of productivity change in publicly-funded UK universities, against a background of government policy specifically designed to enhance the productive efficiency of universities in the provision of teaching and research. The nonparametric analysis employs a cost indirect approach to measuring productivity change, taking explicit account of the quality of research output and decomposing productivity change into technical change and efficiency change. The latter is also decomposed into changes in pure technical efficiency, scale efficiency and output congestion. Changes in size efficiency are also computed. On average, productivity declined by 4% over 1989–92, mainly as a result of regressive technical change. Evidence of biased technological change was found, with the frontier shifting out in favour of the teaching outputs and in relative to the research output.     

Which Credit Unions are Acquired?

Recent years have witnessed a wave of consolidation amongst US credit unions. Through hazard function estimations, this paper identifies the determinants of acquisition for credit unions during the period 2001-06. The hazard of acquisition is inversely related to both asset size and profitability, and positively related to liquidity. Growth-constrained credit unions are less attractive acquisition targets. Institutions with low capitalization and those with small loans portfolios relative to total assets are susceptible to acquisition. The investigation presents unique empirical evidence of a link between technological capability and the hazard of acquisition. During the period 2001-06, when there was sustained growth in the use of internet technology, credit unions with no website were at the highest risk of acquisition.     

Credit Unions: A Theoretical and Empirical Overview

In 2009 there were over 49,330 credit unions across 98 countries with more than 184 million members and approximately $1,354 billion in assets. There is a great diversity within the credit union movement across these countries. This reflects the various economic, historic and cultural contexts within which credit unions operate. This paper traces the evolution of the credit union movement. It examines credit union objectives, and considers issues relating to efficiency, technology adoption, product diversification, merger, failure and demutualization. The regulatory environment within which credit unions operate is also explored under the themes of interest rate regulation, common bond requirements, taxation, deposit insurance and capital regulation. The overview also considers demutualization and the costs and benefits to credit unions of altering their organizational form.     

Evaluating the productive performance of UK universities as cost-constrained revenue maximizers: an empirical analysis

The study presents an empirical analysis of the relative revenue efficiency of UK universities in providing teaching and research. With government policies pressurizing the largely public-funded universities to secure efficiency in both input usage and output revenue, university producers are modelled as cost-constrained revenue maximizers. Taking explicit account of the quality of research output, the methodology uses linear programming techniques to construct nonparametric cost indirect production frontiers and to compute revenue efficiency relative to these frontiers. Revenue efficiency is then decomposed into its (output) allocative and technical components. Further analysis investigates the sources of allocative and technical inefficiencies.     

Accounting for the Public Sector at a Time of Crisis

This Special Issue is based on papers initially presented at the ‘Accounting for the Public Sector at a Time of Crisis’ Conference at the Centre for Not-for-profit and Public-sector Research, Queen's University Belfast, UK in 2018. The public sector consists of organizations that are owned and operated by government; organizations that exist to provide goods and services for a country's citizens. What is particularly distinctive about such organizations, and what makes them different from businesses, is that they are (or, at least perhaps, should be) not-for-profit. In addition, they frequently have wide social and cultural goals that are central to what they do. They are pervasive in most societies. Yet, it is argued, they face crisis on a number of fronts: in terms of the influence of potentially inappropriate, business-like new public management ideas related to performance management and the embracing of related accounting and budgeting approaches; and in terms of the impact of austerity, following the Great Recession in 2008. In such a context it is suggested that public sector governance, accounting, and accountability systems are heavily involved. The papers included in this Special Issue present an opportunity to reflect on aspects of this crisis in terms of how it connects with accounting systems and accounting changes. Key arguments of these papers, and overarching themes of this Special Issue, are explored in this editorial.     

Credit Unions in Britain: A Time for Change

As member-owned, not-for-profit financial institutions, credit unions are an important instrument of public policy, particularly in pushing forward measures to tackle financial and social exclusion. Historically, the credit union movement in Great Britain has been hampered by a number of factors, including a lack of leadership, a cohesive identity and regulatory impediments. Recent legislative review and change has provided credit unions with the opportunity to grow and extend the scale and scope of services they can offer to their members. However, policy-makers should be aware that funding initiatives to support credit union development might undermine their self-help cornerstone and weaken the future development of the movement.