This paper extends the Schure and Wagenvoort (1999) study, which considers economies of scale and efficiency in European banking, in a number of directions. Firstly, we introduce what we believe to be important improvements to estimating efficiency. Secondly, we examine more closely the...

We measure the total-risk-adjusted (as opposed to factor-risk-adjusted) performance of hedge fund indices in well-diversified portfolios. Alpha is defined as the difference between, on the one hand, the average return on a mean-variance efficient portfolio containing exclusively traditional...

This paper presents and analyses the results of a survey of some 400 credit institutions in the European Union carried out by the European Investment Bank in the summer of 2003. An indepth analysis of the survey responses of 74 participating banks leads to the following conclusions: (1) despite...