Isolating the ‘Pure’ Effect of the 2004/2005 Bank Consolidation Policy on Performance of Banks in Nigeria, Using the Chow Test (2000-2010)

A cursory review of existing impact study literature of 2004/2005 Nigerian bank consolidation, of which mergers and acquisitions were the main policy thrust, revealed that most studies  concluded that the policy has had a tractable and significant impact on bank intermediation, deposits mobilization and management of loans and advances as well as bank performance. However, a critical analysis of the literature showed that majority of existing studies were neither founded on a sound theoretical premise nor their models sophisticated enough to distil the ‘real’ licy from the superficial and added-up effect of pooling capital bases, deposits, credit balances and book profits of several banks. To overcome the observed shortcomings, full estimated generalized least-square (FEGLS) and fixed effect-least-squares dummy variable (LSDV) models were developed. A panel data consisting of 11-year time series data, covering six stratified randomly selected consolidated banks in Nigeria was used in the study. While FEGLS was designed to isolate the ‘pure’ impact of the policy on bank performance using the Chow test procedure, the LSDV model was deployed to test the hypothesis that the overall impact was not evenly spread across banks. The results of the empirical estimation seem to cast doubt on the validity of the general conclusion of past studies - that the policy has had ‘real’ and significant impact on bank intermediation, portfolio management and performance. The study observed that this conclusion probably due to the short-term nature of the period covered by most of the studies and recommended the use robust methodologies by subsequent research on the subject.