Taiwan second financial restructuring and commercial bank productivity growth

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of merger and acquisition (M&As) of “second financial restructuring” (SFR) on the productivity growth of commercial banks in Taiwan. Design/methodology/approach - – The paper uses the Malmquist productivity change index to evaluate the changes from pre-SFR to SFR period and from pre-SFR to post-SFR period. In addition, the bootstrapping regression method is applied to examine the relationship of SFR policy and productivity change. Findings - – Merged banks have improved their productivity and scale efficiency after the M&As program of SFR. In addition, the greater productivity growth of merged banks than non-merged banks is attributed to small-sized and private-voluntary merged banks. Furthermore, the small-sized merged banks have greater productivity growth and scale efficiency improvement than the big-sized merged banks, and the government-mandatory merged banks have lower productivity growth than private-voluntary merged banks after the SFR. Research limitations/implications - – This study has an academic implication for providing additional empirical evidence related to the impact of government M&As policy on bank productivity growth in the developing countries. Practical implications - – The findings on this paper have implications for financial reform policy and banking management on M&As activity, in particular, as they clarify the differential effects of big-sized vs small-sized and government-mandatory vs private-voluntary merged banks. Originality/value - – Understanding the impacts of financial reform is particularly important as the banking industry has become increasingly competitive. This paper contributes to this area by assessing the impact of the M&As policy of SFR on productivity growth and evaluating differential effects of M&As.