We study empirically the effect of focus (specialization) vs. diversification on the return and the risk of banks using data from 105 Italian banks over the period 1993–1999. Specifically, we analyze the tradeoffs between (loan portfolio) focus and diversification using a unique data set that is able to identify individual bank loan exposures to different industries, to different sectors, and t...

Banks play an important role in the economic development of every nation. They have control over a large part of the supply of money in circulation. Since, the appearance of private commercial banks is the larger portion of the banking sector in Bangladesh, thus this study is intended to measure the performance of selected private sector banks (five), listed on both the Dhaka Stock Exchange and...

This paper analyzes the effects of parliamentary election cycles on the Turkish banking system. Using annual bank-level data representing all banks in Turkey during 1963–2005, we present evidence of meaningful differences in the structure of bank assets, liabilities and financial performance across different stages of the parliamentary election cycle. However, we find that government-owned bank...

There is a serious lack of empirical studies on Islamic banking. This paper attempts to fill that gap to some extent. Using data for the 1990-98 period, several hypotheses and common perceptions about the practice of Islamic banking have been tested. The performance of Islamic banks has been evaluated using both trend and ratio analyses. For this purpose, some objective “benchmarks” for various...

Using comprehensive corporate and retail loan data, we show that the corporate culture of banks explains their risktaking behaviour. Banks whose corporate culture leans towards aggressive competition are associated with riskier lending practices: higher approval rate, lower borrower quality, and fewer covenant requirements. Consequently, these banks incur larger loan losses and make greater con...

This paper investigates cost, technical and allocative efficiencies for Brazilian banks in the recent period (2000-2007). We use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to compute efficiency scores. Brazilian banks were found to have low levels of economic (cost) efficiency compared to banks in Europe and in the US. For the period with high macroeconomic volatility (2000-2002) the economic inefficiency...

There is a wide cross-country variation in the institutional structure of bank failure resolution, including the role of the deposit insurer. We use quantitative analysis for 57 countries and discussion of specific country cases to illustrate this variation. Using data for over 1,700 banks across 57 countries, we show that banks in countries where the deposit insurer has the responsibility of i...

Using bank level data this paper examines how bank’s specific characteristics and the overall banking environment affect the profitability of commercial domestic and foreign banks operating in the 15 EU countries over the period 1995–2001. The results indicate that profitability of both domestic and foreign banks is affected not only by bank’s specific characteristics but also by financial mark...

This paper empirically investigates the link between political patronage and bank performance for Ukraine during 2003Q3–2005Q2. We find significant differences between politically affiliated and non-affiliated banks. The data suggest that affiliated banks have significantly lower interest rate margins and increase their capitalization. Furthermore, we show that the level of activity of affiliat...

This paper analyzes productivity with a directional distance function model by investigating convexity and non-convexity in the Chinese banking sector. Two primary findings are summarized. First, there is a distinct change in productivity between large versus small banks and public versus nationwide joint-stock banks; the economies of scale and public orientation of the Chinese economy affect t...