Evaluating the Performance of Agricultural Bank Management : The Impact of State Regulatory Policies

We evaluate agricultural bank management performance, focusing on the impacts of interstate banking laws on productivity change. The generalized Malmquist productivity index decomposes productivity change into technological change, technical efficiency change, and change in scale economies. While managerial productivity rose from 1982 to 1991, states that adopted the most liberal interstate banking laws experienced the greatest improvement in productivity. Large agricultural banks were more efficient in states that had more liberalized interstate banking laws while small agricultural banks fared better in states with more restrictive laws