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Efficiency of financial institutions: International survey and directions for future research

Over the past several years, substantial research effort has gone into measuring the efficiency of financial institutions. Many studies have found that inefficiencies are quite large, on the order of 20% or more of total banking industry costs and about half of the industry's potential profits. There is no consensus on the sources of the differences in measured efficiency. this paper examines several possible sources, including differences in efficiency concept, measurement method, and a number of bank, market, and regulatory characteristics. We review the existing literature and provide new evidence using data on US banks over the period 1990–1995.

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Inside the Black Box: What Explains Differences in the Efficiencies of Financial Institutions?

This paper addresses a little examined intersection between the problem loan literature and the bank efficiency literature. We employ Granger-causality techniques to test four hypotheses regarding the relationships among loan quality, cost efficiency, and bank capital. The data suggest that problem loans precede reductions in measured cost efficiency; that measured cost efficiency precedes reductions in problem loans; and the reductions in capital at thinly capitalized banks precede increases in problem loans. Hence, cost efficiency may be an important indicator of future problem loans and problem banks. Our results are ambiguous concerning whether or not researchers should control for problem loans in efficiency estimation.

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Problem Loans and Cost Efficiency in Commercial Banks

This article designs a framework for evaluating the causes, consequences, and future implications of financial services industry consolidation, reviews the extant research literature within the context of this framework (over 250 references), and suggests fruitful avenues for future research. The evidence is consistent with increases in market power from some types of consolidation; improvements in profit eAciency and diversification of risks, but little or no cost eAciency improvement on average; relatively little eAect on the availability of services to small customers; potential improvements in payments system eAciency; and potential costs on the financial system from increases in systemic risk or expansion of the financial safety net. ” 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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The consolidation of the financial services industry: Causes, consequences, and implications for the future

The Econometrics of Panel DataSpringer Handbook of Science and Technology IndicatorsPanel Data EconometricsThe Econometrics of Panel DataA Practitioner's Guide to Stochastic Frontier Analysis Using StataBenchmarking for Performance EvaluationEssays on Microeconomics and Industrial OrganisationHealth System EfficiencyInternational Journal of Production EconomicsEconometric Analysis of Model Selection and Model TestingInternational Applications of Productivity and Efficiency AnalysisAdvanced Robust and Nonparametric Methods in Efficiency AnalysisEconometrics and the Philosophy of EconomicsThe Measurement of Productive EfficiencyMeasuring Efficiency in Health CareFinancial, Macro and Micro Econometrics Using REconometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel DataApplied EconometricsProductivity and Efficiency AnalysisEconometric Model SelectionProductivity and Efficiency AnalysisStochastic Frontier AnalysisThe Oxford Handbook of Health EconomicsThe Measurement of Productive Efficiency and Productivity GrowthNew Directions in Productivity Measurement and Efficiency AnalysisA Primer on Efficiency Measurement for Utilities and Transport RegulatorsPanel Data EconometricsProduction and Efficiency Analysis with RApplications of Modern Production TheoryThe Measurement of Productive EfficiencyNonparametric Econometric Methods and ApplicationAn Introduction to Efficiency and Productivity AnalysisHealth, the Medical Profession, and RegulationThe Analysis of Household SurveysData Envelopment AnalysisProgramming Collective IntelligenceEfficiency AnalysisProductivity and Efficiency AnalysisMeasurement of Productivity and EfficiencyProduction Frontiers

The Econometric Approach to Efficiency Analysis

The deregulation of interest rates in the early 1980s raised bank funding costs and lowered profits. In response, banks raised fees for deposit services, reduced branch operating costs, and shifted to higher earning assets. Rates of return did not regain their prederegulation levels until the early 1990s. Our goal is to decompose the change in bank profits following deregulation into (i) intemal, bank-initiated adjustments to the new regulatory structure and (ii) external, contemporaneous changes in banks' business environment. This decomposition will depend, in part, on the assumed competitive structure of the banking industry. With perfect competition, output and input prices are part of the external environment and banks' responses are limited to changes in output and input quantities. An alternative approach assumes imperfect competition where banks have some control over output prices (deposit fees, minimum balance requirements, and interest rates on certain loans) and output quantities and input prices comprise the external environment. The altemative model is supported by the data. Using this model, large banks-but not smaller banks-are found to have relied primarily on changing output prices and input use to mitigate and reverse the negative effects of deregulation on profits. The adjustment to deregulation was essentially complete after four years. Following this, additional changes in bank profitability (during the late 1980s) were primarily due to changes in banks' business environment.

Banks' Responses to Deregulation: Profits, Technology, and Efficiency

The social cost of a payment system comprises between 1% to 1.5% of GDP. This cost can be reduced if non-cash payments shift from paper to electronics since the cost of an electronic payment is estimated to be from one-third to one-half that of a paper-based transaction. We examine the use of cash and five non-cash payment instruments in 14 developed countries over 1987-1993. Our purpose is (1) to outline the current use of check, paper giro, electronic giro, credit card, and debit card payments and (2) to determine why some payment instruments are used more intensively than others, especially electronic versus paper-based payments. Standard demand theory influences (own price and incomes, institutional factors, and simple availability measures across countries are examined, as is the effect of habit formation. Payment substitution relationships are also estimated and indicate that checks will decline with further growth of electronic payments while the instruments that make up electronic payments will tend to expand together rather than replace one another. Copyright 1996 by Ohio State University Press.

Cash, Paper, and Electronic Payments: A Cross-Country Analysis

'Narrow' banking proposals would separate insured deposits from most types of bank lending. Using data from large U.S. banks, the authors examine the extent to which narrow banking proposals are likely to result in increased production costs. Production costs will rise for nonjoint provision of deposit and loan services if there are cost complementarities in producing the two outputs jointly or if joint production enables banks to spread their fixed costs more effectively. Unlike standard cost function approaches, the authors' methods allow them to estimate the fixed-cost and cost-complementarity effects separately. They find the net production cost consequences of narrow banking to be negligible. Copyright 1993 by University of Chicago Press.

The Role of Fixed Costs and Cost Complementarities in Determining Scope Economies and the Cost of Narrow Banking Proposals

In providing financial services jointly, banks may reduce costs due to complementarities in production (cost economies of scope) or raise revenues from complementarities in consumption (revenue economies of scope). Cost economies of scope between bank deposits and loans have been found to be small. Revenue economies of scope are investigated here for the first time and found to be insignificant over 1978–1990 for both small and large banks and for those on or off the revenue-efficient frontier. The lack of complementarities between deposits and loans — where benefits are most likely to occur — suggests that claims of important synergies from an expansion of banking powers be taken with caution.

Lawrence B. Pulley

Papers

Banks' Responses to Deregulation: Profits, Technology, and Efficiency

Cash, Paper, and Electronic Payments: A Cross-Country Analysis

The Role of Fixed Costs and Cost Complementarities in Determining Scope Economies and the Cost of Narrow Banking Proposals

Do consumers pay for one-stop banking? Evidence from an alternative revenue function

Cash, paper, and electronic payments: a cross-country analysis