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Inside the black box: what explains differences in the efficiencies of financial institutions?

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Author Info
Allen N. Berger
Loretta J. Mester

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Abstract

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 percent 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 extant literature and provide new evidence using data on U.S. banks over the period 1990-95.

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Paper provided by Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.) in its series Finance and Economics Discussion Series with number 1997-10.

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Date of creation: 1997
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:1997-10

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Keywords: Bank loans Financial institutions

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Hughes, Joseph P, et al, 1996. "Efficient Banking under Interstate Branching," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 28(4), pages 1045-71, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Jagtiani, Julapa & Nathan, Alli & Sick, Gordon, 1995. "Scale economies and cost complementarities in commercial banks: On-and off-balance-sheet activities," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(7), pages 1175-1189, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Hannan, Timothy H., 1991. "Bank commercial loan markets and the role of market structure: evidence from surveys of commercial lending," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 133-149, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Shaffer, Sherrill & David, Edmond, 1991. "Economies of Superscale in Commercial Banking," Applied Economics, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 23(2), pages 283-93, February.
  5. Mester, Loretta J., 1996. "A study of bank efficiency taking into account risk-preferences," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 1025-1045, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Allen N. Berger & David B. Humphrey, 1997. "Efficiency of financial institutions: international survey and directions for future research," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1997-11, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
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  7. Shaffer, Sherrill, 1994. "A Revenue-Restricted Cost Study of 100 Large Banks," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 4(3), pages 193-205, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Joseph P. Hughes & William W. Lang & Loretta J. Mester, 1995. "Recovering technologies that account for generalized managerial preferences: an application to non-risk neutral banks," Working Papers 95-8/R, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
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  9. Berger, Allen N & Hannan, Timothy H, 1989. "The Price-Concentration Relationship in Banking," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 71(2), pages 291-99, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Kaparakis, Emmanuel I & Miller, Stephen M & Noulas, Athanasios G, 1994. "Short-Run Cost Inefficiency of Commercial Banks: A Flexible Stochastic Frontier Approach," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 26(4), pages 875-93, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Jalal D. Akhavein & Allen N. Berger & David B. Humphrey, 1996. "The Effects of Megamergers on Efficiency and Prices: Evidence from a Bank Profit Function," Center for Financial Institutions Working Papers 96-03, Wharton School Center for Financial Institutions, University of Pennsylvania.
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  12. Loretta J. Mester, 1994. "How efficient are Third District banks?," Business Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, issue Jan, pages 3-18.
  13. Berger, Allen N. & Hancock, Diana & Humphrey, David B., 1993. "Bank efficiency derived from the profit function," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(2-3), pages 317-347, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Hancock, Diana, 1985. "The Financial Firm: Production with Monetary and Nonmonetary Goods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(5), pages 859-80, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Bauer, Paul W. & Hancock, Diana, 1993. "The efficiency of the Federal Reserve in providing check processing services," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(2-3), pages 287-311, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Benjamin E. Hermalin & Nancy E. Wallace, 1994. "The Determinants of Efficiency and Solvency in Savings and Loans," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 25(3), pages 361-381, Autumn. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Mester, Loretta J., 1992. "Traditional and nontraditional banking: An information-theoretic approach," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 545-566, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  18. Mitchell, Karlyn & Onvural, Nur M, 1996. "Economies of Scale and Scope at Large Commercial Banks: Evidence from the Fourier Flexible Functional Form," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 28(2), pages 178-99, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  19. Stevenson, Rodney E., 1980. "Likelihood functions for generalized stochastic frontier estimation," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 57-66, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Joseph P. Hughes & Loretta J. Mester, 1998. "Bank Capitalization And Cost: Evidence Of Scale Economies In Risk Management And Signaling," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(2), pages 314-325, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  21. Gardner, Lisa A. & Grace, Martin F., 1993. "X-Efficiency in the US life insurance industry," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(2-3), pages 497-510, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  22. Jong-Il Kim & Lawrence J. Lau, 1996. "The sources of Asian Pacific economic growth," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 29(s1), pages 448-54, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  23. Berger, Allen N. & Humphrey, David B., 1991. "The dominance of inefficiencies over scale and product mix economies in banking," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 117-148, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  24. Pi, Lynn & Timme, Stephen G., 1993. "Corporate control and bank efficiency," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(2-3), pages 515-530, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  25. Allen Berger & Timothy Hannan, 1994. "The Efficiency Cost of Market Power in the Banking Industry: A Test of the 'Quiet Life' and Related Hypotheses," Center for Financial Institutions Working Papers 94-29, Wharton School Center for Financial Institutions, University of Pennsylvania.
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  26. Simon H. Kwan & Robert A. Eisenbeis, 1996. "An analysis of inefficiencies in banking: a stochastic cost frontier approach," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, pages 16-26. [Downloadable!]
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  27. Joseph P. Hughes & William W. Lang & Loretta J. Mester & Choon-Geol Moon, 1996. "Safety in numbers? Geographic diversification and bank insolvency risk," Working Papers 96-14, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. [Downloadable!]
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  28. Mester, Loretta J., 1993. "Efficiency in the savings and loan industry," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(2-3), pages 267-286, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  29. Joseph P. Hughes & William W. Lang & Loretta J. Mester & Choon-Geol Moon, 1996. "Efficient banking under interstate branching," Working Papers 96-9, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. [Downloadable!]
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  30. Allen N. Berger & Robert DeYoung, 1996. "Problem loans and cost efficiency in commercial banks," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, issue May, pages 219-236.
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  31. Hannan, Timothy H. & Liang, J. Nellie, 1993. "Inferring market power from time-series data : The case of the banking firm," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 205-218, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  32. McAllister, Patrick H. & McManus, Douglas, 1993. "Resolving the scale efficiency puzzle in banking," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(2-3), pages 389-405, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  33. P.A.V.B. Swamy & Jalal D. Akhavein & Stephen B. Taubman, 1994. "A general method of deriving the efficiencies of banks from a profit function," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 94-11, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
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  34. Demsetz, Harold, 1973. "Industry Structure, Market Rivalry, and Public Policy," Journal of Law & Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(1), pages 1-9, April.
  35. Joseph P. Hughes & Loretta J. Mester, . "A Quality and Risk-Adjusted Cost Function for Banks: Evidence on the "Too-Big-To-Fail" Doctrine," Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research Working Papers 25-92, Wharton School Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research.
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  36. Greene, William H., 1990. "A Gamma-distributed stochastic frontier model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1-2), pages 141-163. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  37. Hancock, Diana, 1986. "A model of the financial firm with imperfect asset and deposit elasticities," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 37-54, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  38. Kenneth Spong & Richard J. Sullivan & Robert DeYoung, 1995. "What makes a bank efficient? : a look at financial characteristics and management and ownership structure," Financial Industry Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Dec, pages 1-19. [Downloadable!]
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