Efficiency is considered a key factor when evaluating a bank's performance. Moreover, efficiency enhancement is an … explicit policy objective in the Single Market Directive of the European Commission. But efficiency improvements may come at … of performance in response to efficiency improvements remain often unclear on both theoretical and empirical grounds. We …

We analyze the stability of efficiency rankings of German universal banks between 1993 and 2004. First, we estimate … traditional efficiency scores with stochastic cost and alternative profit frontier analysis. Then, we explicitly allow for … different risk preferences and measure efficiency with a structural model based on utility maximization. Using the almost ideal …

The question of whether or not mergers and acquisitions have helped to enhance banks’ efficiency and profitability has … and cost efficiency. We suggest a new matching strategy to control for the selection effects arising from the fact that … positive effect on cost efficiency. Comparing our results with those obtained from a naive performance comparison of merging …

efficiency (CE). We categorise mergers a success that fulfill simultaneously two criteria. First, merged institutes must exhibit … year above efficiency changes of non-merging banks. We employ this taxonomy to characterise (successful) mergers in terms …