IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jomega/v35y2007i2p131-142.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Microfinance institutions and efficiency

Author

Listed:
  • Gutiérrez-Nieto, Begoña
  • Serrano-Cinca, Carlos
  • Mar Molinero, Cecilio

Abstract

Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) are special financial institutions. They have both a social nature and a for-profit nature. Their performance has been traditionally measured by means of financial ratios. The paper goes beyond simple financial ratios using a data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach to measure the efficiency of MFIs. Special care is taken in the specification of the DEA model. We take a methodological approach based on multivariate analysis. We rank DEA efficiencies under different models and specifications; e.g. particular sets of inputs and outputs. This serves to explore what is behind a DEA score. The results show that we can explain MFIs efficiency by means of four principal components of efficiency, and this way we are able to understand differences between DEA scores. It is shown that there are country effects on efficiency; and effects that depend on non-governmental organization (NGO)/non-NGO status of the MFI.

Suggested Citation

  • Gutiérrez-Nieto, Begoña & Serrano-Cinca, Carlos & Mar Molinero, Cecilio, 2007. "Microfinance institutions and efficiency," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 131-142, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jomega:v:35:y:2007:i:2:p:131-142
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305-0483(05)00065-4
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Knox Lovell, C. A. & Pastor, Jesus T., 1997. "Target setting: An application to a bank branch network," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 98(2), pages 290-299, April.
    2. Bala, Kamel & Cook, Wade D., 2003. "Performance measurement with classification information: an enhanced additive DEA model," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 439-450, December.
    3. Tortosa-Ausina, Emili, 2002. "Exploring efficiency differences over time in the Spanish banking industry," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 139(3), pages 643-664, June.
    4. 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.
    5. Jose Pastor, 1999. "Efficiency and risk management in Spanish banking: a method to decompose risk," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(4), pages 371-384.
    6. Hollis, Aidan & Sweetman, Arthur, 1998. "Microcredit in Prefamine Ireland," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 347-380, October.
    7. C Serrano Cinca & C Mar Molinero, 2004. "Selecting DEA specifications and ranking units via PCA," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 55(5), pages 521-528, May.
    8. Hartman, Thomas E. & Storbeck, James E. & Byrnes, Patricia, 2001. "Allocative efficiency in branch banking," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 134(2), pages 232-242, October.
    9. Chaves, Rodrigo A. & Gonzalez-Vega, Claudio, 1996. "The design of successful rural financial intermediaries: Evidence from Indonesia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 65-78, January.
    10. Andrew Worthington, 1998. "The determinants of non-bank financial institution efficiency: a stochastic cost frontier approach," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(3), pages 279-287.
    11. Pastor, JoseManuel & Perez, Francisco & Quesada, Javier, 1997. "Efficiency analysis in banking firms: An international comparison," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 98(2), pages 395-407, April.
    12. Jenkins, Larry & Anderson, Murray, 2003. "A multivariate statistical approach to reducing the number of variables in data envelopment analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 147(1), pages 51-61, May.
    13. Lawrence M. Seiford & Joe Zhu, 1999. "Profitability and Marketability of the Top 55 U.S. Commercial Banks," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(9), pages 1270-1288, September.
    14. repec:idb:brikps:46838 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Charnes, A. & Cooper, W. W. & Rhodes, E., 1978. "Measuring the efficiency of decision making units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 2(6), pages 429-444, November.
    16. Jonathan Morduch, 1999. "The Microfinance Promise," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1569-1614, December.
    17. Jesús T. Pastor & JosÉ L. Ruiz & Inmaculada Sirvent, 2002. "A Statistical Test for Nested Radial Dea Models," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 50(4), pages 728-735, August.
    18. Andreas Soteriou & Stavros A. Zenios, 1999. "Operations, Quality, and Profitability in the Provision of Banking Services," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(9), pages 1221-1238, September.
    19. F Pedraja-Chaparro & J Salinas-Jiménez & P Smith, 1999. "On the quality of the data envelopment analysis model," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 50(6), pages 636-644, June.
    20. Athanassopoulos, Antreas D., 1997. "Service quality and operating efficiency synergies for management control in the provision of financial services: Evidence from Greek bank branches," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 98(2), pages 300-313, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. B Gutiérrez-Nieto & C Serrano-Cinca & C Mar Molinero, 2009. "Social efficiency in microfinance institutions," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 60(1), pages 104-119, January.
    2. Paradi, Joseph C. & Zhu, Haiyan, 2013. "A survey on bank branch efficiency and performance research with data envelopment analysis," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 61-79.
    3. A Mukherjee & P Nath & M Pal, 2003. "Resource, service quality and performance triad: a framework for measuring efficiency of banking services," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 54(7), pages 723-735, July.
    4. Imad Bou-Hamad & Abdel Latef Anouze & Ibrahim H. Osman, 2022. "A cognitive analytics management framework to select input and output variables for data envelopment analysis modeling of performance efficiency of banks using random forest and entropy of information," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 308(1), pages 63-92, January.
    5. Berger, Allen N. & Humphrey, David B., 1997. "Efficiency of financial institutions: International survey and directions for future research," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 98(2), pages 175-212, April.
    6. Mai, Nhat Chi, 2015. "Efficiency of the banking system in Vietnam under financial liberalization," OSF Preprints qsf6d, Center for Open Science.
    7. Liu, John S. & Lu, Louis Y.Y. & Lu, Wen-Min, 2016. "Research fronts in data envelopment analysis," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 33-45.
    8. Lin, Tzu-Yu & Chiu, Sheng-Hsiung, 2013. "Using independent component analysis and network DEA to improve bank performance evaluation," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 608-616.
    9. Wijesiri, Mahinda & Yaron, Jacob & Meoli, Michele, 2017. "Assessing the financial and outreach efficiency of microfinance institutions: Do age and size matter?," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 63-76.
    10. Piot-Lepetit, Isabelle & Nzongang, Joseph, 2014. "Financial sustainability and poverty outreach within a network of village banks in Cameroon: A multi-DEA approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 234(1), pages 319-330.
    11. Jesús Pastor & C. Lovell & Henry Tulkens, 2006. "Evaluating the financial performance of bank branches," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 145(1), pages 321-337, July.
    12. Paradi, Joseph C. & Rouatt, Stephen & Zhu, Haiyan, 2011. "Two-stage evaluation of bank branch efficiency using data envelopment analysis," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 99-109, January.
    13. Jamal Ouenniche & Skarleth Carrales, 2018. "Assessing efficiency profiles of UK commercial banks: a DEA analysis with regression-based feedback," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 266(1), pages 551-587, July.
    14. Muneer Babu M. & Praveen Kulshreshtha, 2014. "Productivity Change and Technical Efficiency in Indian Microfinance Institutions," Studies in Microeconomics, , vol. 2(2), pages 165-200, December.
    15. Aude Hubrecht-Deville & Herve Leleu, 2008. "Impact of trade area environment on bank's comparative advantages," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(17), pages 2209-2219.
    16. Gunjan M. Sanjeev, 2006. "Data Envelopment Analysis (Dea) for Measuring Technical Efficiency of Banks," Vision, , vol. 10(1), pages 13-27, January.
    17. Yongjun Li & Xiao Shi & Min Yang & Liang Liang, 2017. "Variable selection in data envelopment analysis via Akaike’s information criteria," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 253(1), pages 453-476, June.
    18. Christos Floros, 2020. "Banking Development and Economy in Greece: Evidence from Regional Data," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-13, October.
    19. Adler, Nicole & Yazhemsky, Ekaterina, 2010. "Improving discrimination in data envelopment analysis: PCA-DEA or variable reduction," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 202(1), pages 273-284, April.
    20. Ripoll-Zarraga, Ane Elixabete & Mar-Molinero, Cecilio, 2020. "Exploring the reasons for efficiency in Spanish airports," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 186-202.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jomega:v:35:y:2007:i:2:p:131-142. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/375/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.