Size, Equity Backing, and Bank Profitability: A Case Study Using Panel Data from Bangladesh

This paper examines the statistical relationship between banks’ return on equity on one hand, and their size (as measured by inflation-adjusted total assets) and capital structure on the other, using uses a set of panel data collected by the first author in 2014. The empirical approach applied allows for heterogeneity across observational units as well as nonlinearity and non-additivity in the conditional mean function, thus facilitating the identification of more complex forms of structural dependence that might remain undetected when using classical linear regression techniques. The results indicate that while a certain degree of equity capitalisation is a necessary precondition for profitability, the positive impact of an increased equity ratio on return on profitability seems to fade above a certain threshold level, the location of which, however, depends on bank size.