The expansion and intensification of banking competition, undergone by the Spanish banking industry during the last 15 years, has allowed commercial banks and savings banks to more freely define their competitive strategies. This paper reports empirical evidence on the similarities and...

This paper analyses the importance of productive specialization in explaining cost efficiency differences between banking companies. Taking as reference the Spanish banking sector during the period 1985-1996, the study shows that if cost efficiency measurements are corrected for the effect of...