The sources of productivity change and efficiency in Islamic banking: Application of Malmquist productivity index

Aim: This paper aims to explore performance of Islamic banks in 13 countries from the period 2005 to 2014 and investigates sources of productivity change over the time. Design / Research methods: The present study gather data on the 31 Islamic banks. The productivity is examined using the Data Envelopment Analysis-based Malmquist productivity index. That we decompose into scale efficiency, technological change and technical efficiency. Source of productivity change in Islamic banks is then identified. We use intermediation approach and production approach to select inputs and outputs of banks. Conclusions / findings: Although the two approaches are different, our empirical implementation shows that they yield very similar results regarding productivity, efficiency and source of productivity change. Islamic banks are productive and efficient over the study period, but they did not show to be scale efficient and they suffer from technological change evolutions. Moreover, we are able to show that Subprime crisis had a slightly negative effect on productivity in Islamic banking industry. Originality / value of the article: Empirical studies are still rare and findings are controversial on productivity and efficiency of Islamic banks. This study intends to fill the gaps with a specific focus on measuring productivity index using two different intermediation approach and production approach to select input and output variables.Implications of the research (if applicable) - Islamic banks are scale inefficient and must improve size of their activities, one possible suggestion is meagering small banks.Limitations of the research (if applicable) - Further research can use bootstrapping techniques to correct total factor productivity estimates for bias and to assess the uncertainty surrounding such estimates.