Financial Information effects on the measurement of Commercial Banks’ Efficiency

Using Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) in a sample of commercial banks from 107 countries for the period 1996-2003, we obtain a mean cost efficiency score of 0,84, which supports the evidence found in other works, suggesting an improvement of efficiency scores over the ones obtained in the previous decade. Adding some data on the financial information framework (Bank Regulation and supervision Database), our study shows that financial information rules produce significant bias in reported efficiency. Following less conservative standards, IAS or USGAAP, banks show lower levels of efficiency than banks in countries with more conservative standards. Also, in countries where disclosure of risk management policies is mandatory, banks seem to be less efficient.