Efficiency, ownership and financial structure in European banking

Purpose – This paper aims to compare the cost efficiencies across bank‐and market‐based EU countries for the different groups of commercial, savings and co‐operative banks; and between listed and non‐listed banking institutions. In addition, it attempts to determine any potential implications for bank efficiency originating from differences in financial structure. Design/methodology/approach – Efficiency scores are estimated using the Battese and Coelli's time‐varying stochastic frontier approach. The classification of bank‐ and market‐based financial systems is based on the World Bank's Financial Structure Database. Findings – On the whole the results reject the agency theory hypothesis that managers of privately‐owned banks are more cost efficient than those of mutual banking institutions because of capital market devices as it is found that mutual banks operating in EU‐15 countries are significantly more cost efficient than commercial banks. Furthermore, results are mixed concerning the financial structure hypothesis that in developed financial systems bank efficiency should not be statistically different across bank‐vs market‐based economies. Research limitations/implications – The analysis suggests that differences in cost efficiency across bank types can often be explained by the prevailing financial system in each economy. Practical implications – The evidence illustrates the national diversity of corporate governance systems in Europe and can be important to policy makers who are concerned with the full integration of the European financial system. Originality/value – To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there are no previous similar empirical works for the EU banking sector. Such a study has important policy implications especially due to the fact that the EU banking sector is experiencing profound structural changes and a full integration has not yet been achieved.