Does ‘inner' competition – rivalry among network members – worsen performance in a network of cooperative banks? Inner competition might, in fact, endanger network-dependent scale economies. We test our hypothesis on Banche di Credito Cooperativo (BCCs), Italy's network of mutual...

In this paper we study the intense wave of mergers among Italian mutual cooperative banks (Banche di Credito Cooperativo, BCCs) and try to assess whether those mergers were efficiency-enhancing. For the purpose, we employ a two-step procedure: we first estimate bank-level cost efficiency scores...

The book “New Cooperative Banking in Europe. Strategies for Adapting the Business Model Post Crisis”, edited by Marco Migliorelli and published by Palgrave Macmillian in 2018, rigorously delves into the future of the European cooperative banking sector. Corroborated by up to date and hard to...