Market Concentration, Risk-taking, and Efficiency of Commercial Banks in Pakistan: An Application of the Two-Stage Double Bootstrap DEA

Efficiency analysis is a vital part of prudent management practices across the banking industry, yet there is only sparse literature examining bank efficiency, especially in Asian developing countries and using a comprehensive methodology. This study aims to analyze bank efficiency in a South Asian developing country, Pakistan, for the period 2007 to 2014. Borrowing a technique from Simar and Wilson (2007), this study applies two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) with double bootstrapping. Our results reveal that private banks are more technically efficient than government banks; conventional commercial banks precede Islamic commercial banks in efficiency, and large banks are more technically efficient than small and medium-size banks. Moreover, the results indicate that market concentration, capital risk, credit risk, and liquidity risk have significant effects on the overall efficiency of banks. This study provides an important opportunity to advance the understanding of bank efficiency, market concentration, and risk complications in developing countries and gives insightful directions to researchers and financial institutions.