Research on the Operation, Market and ESG Efficiency of China's Local Commercial Banks in the Context of COVID-19

China's commercial banks have gone through complex stages of historical development. In the increasingly unstable external environment, China's local commercial banks must consider the importance of sustainable development capacity more deeply while focusing on traditional operation efficiency. In academia, various types of DEA models have been applied to measure the efficiency of commercial banks' performance in terms of business operation and social responsibility. The impact of COVID-19 on different fields and aspects of commercial bank operations has also been widely discussed. However, efficiency studies that consider traditional business and ESG activities of commercial banks as parallel production links, especially those that include the impact of COVID-19, are still very scarce. By constructing a window parallel undesirable two-stage range directional measure (RDM) directional distance function (DDF) model, this paper measures the comprehensive efficiency of 15 Chinese A-share listed commercial banks and draws the following conclusions: (1) In terms of overall efficiency, both the average level of overall efficiency and the average stability degree of the overall efficiency of state-owned commercial banks are the lowest among the three types of banks. (2) In terms of stage efficiency, the average efficiency of city commercial banks has advantages in the operation efficiency stage and market efficiency stage. (3) The efficiency gap of input and output factors in the same stage of different types of banks is comprehensive. (4) On average, the efficiency most affected by the outbreak of COVID-19 is the efficiency in the market efficiency stage. (5) After the outbreak of COVID-19, the average efficiency decline of state-owned commercial banks is the highest, which is mainly affected in the market efficiency stage, while the efficiency of city commercial banks is the least affected by the outbreak of the epidemic, with the main negative impact locates in the sustainable efficiency stage. Finally, this paper puts forward comprehensive suggestions for developing China's domestic commercial banking industry.