The Effect of Economic Freedom on Bank Performance

The banking sector is one of the important financial intermediaries in an economic system. Improvement in the banking sector can achieve optimal allocation of financial resources. The performance of banks and other financial service providers has direct effect on economic growth. One of the factors that can affect the banks operation is economic freedom. Economic freedom and freedom of private property rights can influence the quality of financial institutions such as banks. Using panel data model, this paper attempts to study the effect of the economic freedom index on the performance of banks in selected developed and developing countries for the period 2001-2011. According to our finding, countries with higher degree of economic freedom index have better financial performance. Moreover, economic freedom indexes have positive effects on bank′s profitability in both groups of countries.