IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbfina/v21y1997i7p895-947.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Berger, Allen N.
  • Mester, Loretta J.

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 concepts, measurement method, and a number of bank, market, and regulatory characteristics. We review the existing literature and provide new evidency using data on U.S. banks over the period 1990-5.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Berger, Allen N. & Mester, Loretta J., 1997. "Inside the black box: What explains differences in the efficiencies of financial institutions?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(7), pages 895-947, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:21:y:1997:i:7:p:895-947
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378-4266(97)00010-1
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jalal D. Akhavein & Allen N. Berger & David B. Humphrey, "undated". "The Effects of Megamergers on Efficiency and Prices: Evidence from a Bank Profit Function," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1997-09, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), revised 10 Dec 2019.
    2. Humphrey, David B & Pulley, Lawrence B, 1997. "Banks' Responses to Deregulation: Profits, Technology, and Efficiency," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 29(1), pages 73-93, February.
    3. Jalal D. Akhavein & P. A. V. B. Swamy & 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.).
    4. Berger, Allen N. & Leusner, John H. & Mingo, John J., 1997. "The efficiency of bank branches," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 141-162, September.
    5. Joseph P. Hughes & William W. Lang & Loretta J. Mester & Choon-Geol Moon, 1996. "Efficient banking under interstate branching," Proceedings, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), pages 1045-1075.
    6. 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 291-299, May.
    7. Berger, Allen N. & DeYoung, Robert, 1997. "Problem loans and cost efficiency in commercial banks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 849-870, June.
    8. Allen N. Berger & Timothy H. Hannan, 1998. "The Efficiency Cost Of Market Power In The Banking Industry: A Test Of The "Quiet Life" And Related Hypotheses," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(3), pages 454-465, August.
    9. 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 178-199, May.
    10. Joseph P. Hughes & Loretta J. Mester, "undated". "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.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. Choon-Goel Moon & Joseph P. Hughes, 1997. "Measuring Bank Efficiency When Managers Trade Return for Reduced Risk," Departmental Working Papers 199520, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    14. 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.
    15. Berger, Allen N & Cummins, J David & Weiss, Mary A, 1997. "The Coexistence of Multiple Distribution Systems for Financial Services: The Case of Property-Liability Insurance," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 70(4), pages 515-546, October.
    16. Joseph Hughes & William Lang & Loretta Mester & Choon-Geol Moon, 2000. "Recovering Risky Technologies Using the Almost Ideal Demand System: An Application to U.S. Banking," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 18(1), pages 5-27, October.
    17. Sherrill Shaffer, 1988. "A revenue-restricted cost study of 100 large banks," Research Paper 8806, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    18. Allen N. Berger & David B. Humphrey, 1992. "Measurement and Efficiency Issues in Commercial Banking," NBER Chapters, in: Output Measurement in the Service Sectors, pages 245-300, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Mester, Loretta J., 1993. "Efficiency in the savings and loan industry," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(2-3), pages 267-286, April.
    20. Mester, Loretta J., 1992. "Traditional and nontraditional banking: An information-theoretic approach," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 545-566, June.
    21. Loretta J. Mester, 1994. "How efficient are Third District banks?," Business Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, issue Jan, pages 3-18.
    22. DeYoung, Robert, 1997. "A diagnostic test for the distribution-free efficiency estimator: An example using U.S. commercial bank data," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 98(2), pages 243-249, April.
    23. 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.
    24. Robert A. Eisenbeis & Simon H. Kwan, 1996. "An analysis of inefficiencies in banking: a stochastic cost frontier approach," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, pages 16-26.
    25. 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 875-893, November.
    26. Gorton, Gary & Rosen, Richard, 1995. "Corporate Control, Portfolio Choice, and the Decline of Banking," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(5), pages 1377-1420, December.
    27. Hunter, William C & Timme, Stephen G, 1986. "Technical Change, Organizational Form, and the Structure of Bank Production," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 18(2), pages 152-166, May.
    28. Aly, Hassan Y, et al, 1990. "Technical, Scale, and Allocative Efficiencies in U.S. Banking: An Empirical Investigation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 72(2), pages 211-218, May.
    29. Joseph P. Hughes & William Lang & Loretta J. Mester & Choon-Geol Moon, 1995. "Recovering Technologies that Account for Generalized Managerial Preferences: An Application to Non-Risk-Neutral Banks," Center for Financial Institutions Working Papers 95-16, Wharton School Center for Financial Institutions, University of Pennsylvania.
    30. 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.
    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.
    32. Berger, Allen N. & Humphrey, David B. & Pulley, Lawrence B., 1996. "Do consumers pay for one-stop banking? Evidence from an alternative revenue function," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(9), pages 1601-1621, November.
    33. 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.
    34. Sealey, Calvin W, Jr & Lindley, James T, 1977. "Inputs, Outputs, and a Theory of Production and Cost at Depository Financial Institutions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(4), pages 1251-1266, September.
    35. Jith Jayaratne & Philip E. Strahan, 1996. "Entry restrictions, industry evolution and dynamic efficiency: evidence from commercial banking," Research Paper 9630, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    36. 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.
    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.
    38. 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.
    39. Demsetz, Harold, 1973. "Industry Structure, Market Rivalry, and Public Policy," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(1), pages 1-9, April.
    40. 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.
    41. Fried, Harold O. & Knox Lovell, C. A. & Eeckaut, Philippe Vanden, 1993. "Evaluating the performance of US credit unions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(2-3), pages 251-265, April.
    42. Clark, Jeffrey A, 1996. "Economic Cost, Scale Efficiency, and Competitive Viability in Banking," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 28(3), pages 342-364, August.
    43. 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.
    44. Hancock, Diana, 1985. "The Financial Firm: Production with Monetary and Nonmonetary Goods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(5), pages 859-880, October.
    45. 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.
    46. Stevenson, Rodney E., 1980. "Likelihood functions for generalized stochastic frontier estimation," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 57-66, May.
    47. 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 448-454, April.
    48. Greene, William H., 1990. "A Gamma-distributed stochastic frontier model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1-2), pages 141-163.
    49. 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.
    50. Pi, Lynn & Timme, Stephen G., 1993. "Corporate control and bank efficiency," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(2-3), pages 515-530, April.
    51. Robert DeYoung & Kenneth Spong & Richard J. Sullivan, 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.
    52. DeYoung, Robert & Nolle, Daniel E, 1996. "Foreign-Owned Banks in the United States: Earning Market Share or Buying It?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 28(4), pages 622-636, November.
    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. 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.
    2. Berger, Allen N. & Demsetz, Rebecca S. & Strahan, Philip E., 1999. "The consolidation of the financial services industry: Causes, consequences, and implications for the future," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(2-4), pages 135-194, February.
    3. Allen N. Berger & Loretta J. Mester, 1999. "What explains the dramatic changes in cost and profit performance of the U.S. banking industry?," Working Papers 99-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    4. Zuzana Iršová & Tomáš Havránek, 2010. "Measuring Bank Efficiency: A Meta-Regression Analysis," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2010(4), pages 307-328.
    5. Allen Berger & Robert DeYoung, 2001. "The Effects of Geographic Expansion on Bank Efficiency," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 19(2), pages 163-184, April.
    6. Mai, Nhat Chi, 2015. "Efficiency of the banking system in Vietnam under financial liberalization," OSF Preprints qsf6d, Center for Open Science.
    7. Joseph P. Hughes & Loretta J. Mester, 2013. "Measuring the Performance of Banks: Theory, Practice, Evidence, and Some Policy Implications," Departmental Working Papers 201322, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    8. Joseph P. Hughes & Loretta J. Mester, 2008. "Efficiency in banking: theory, practice, and evidence," Working Papers 08-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    9. Altunbas, Yener & Liu, Ming-Hau & Molyneux, Philip & Seth, Rama, 2000. "Efficiency and risk in Japanese banking," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(10), pages 1605-1628, October.
    10. Ihsan Isik & M. Kabir Hassan, 2003. "Efficiency, Ownership and Market Structure, Corporate Control and Governance in the Turkish Banking Industry," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(9‐10), pages 1363-1421, December.
    11. Joseph P. Hughes & Loretta J. Mester, 2018. "The Performance of Financial Institutions: Modeling, Evidence, and Some Policy Implications," Departmental Working Papers 201805, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    12. Isik, Ihsan & Hassan, M. Kabir, 2002. "Technical, scale and allocative efficiencies of Turkish banking industry," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 719-766, April.
    13. Daniel Gropper & Steven Caudill & T. Beard, 1999. "Estimating Multiproduct Cost Functions Over Time Using a Mixture of Normals," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 11(3), pages 201-218, June.
    14. Amel, Dean & Barnes, Colleen & Panetta, Fabio & Salleo, Carmelo, 2004. "Consolidation and efficiency in the financial sector: A review of the international evidence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(10), pages 2493-2519, October.
    15. Bauer, Paul W. & Berger, Allen N. & Ferrier, Gary D. & Humphrey, David B., 1998. "Consistency Conditions for Regulatory Analysis of Financial Institutions: A Comparison of Frontier Efficiency Methods," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 85-114, March.
    16. Williams, Jonathan, 2004. "Determining management behaviour in European banking," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(10), pages 2427-2460, October.
    17. Berger, Allen N. & Mester, Loretta J., 2003. "Explaining the dramatic changes in performance of US banks: technological change, deregulation, and dynamic changes in competition," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 57-95, January.
    18. Allen N. Berger, 2000. "The integration of the financial services industry: where are the efficiencies?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2000-36, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    19. DeYoung, Robert & Spong, Kenneth & Sullivan, Richard J., 2001. "Who's minding the store? Motivating and monitoring hired managers at small, closely held commercial banks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(7), pages 1209-1243, July.
    20. J. Colin Glass & Donal McKillop, 2006. "The impact of differing operating environments on US Credit Union Performance, 1993-2001," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(17), pages 1285-1300.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G2 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services
    • D2 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination
    • F33 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Monetary Arrangements and Institutions

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:jbfina:v:21:y:1997:i:7:p:895-947. 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/locate/jbf .

    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.