AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF THE DETERMINANTS OF BANK PROFITABILITY IN ROMANIA

Our paper aims to investigate the factors that have an influence upon the profitabilityof Romanian commercial banks, between 2003 and 2011. The results of our study show thatRomanian banks‘ profitability is influenced by both bank-specific factors and changes in theexternal environment. In the case of bank-specific factors, the results of our study reflect that bankprofitability is significantly influenced by asset quality, management quality and banking liquidity.Among external factors, it turns out that banking concentration and economic growth rate have animportant impact on bank profitability.