This paper presents an empirical assessment of the degree of competition within the Jamaican banking sector during the period 1998 to 2007. The popular H-statistic by Panzar and Rosse is utilised to estimate market power among the sample of banks. Using usual statistical tests, we are unable to...

According to a frequently cited finding by Berger et al (1993), X-inefficiency contributes 20% to cost-inefficiency in western banks. Empirical studies of Chinese banks tend to place cost-inefficiency in the region of 50%. Such estimates would suggest that Chinese banks suffer from gross cost...

This study demarcates cost-inefficiency in Chinese banks into X-inefficiency and rent-seeking-inefficiency. A protected banking market not only encourages weak management and X-inefficiency but also public ownership and state directed lending encourages moral hazard and bureaucratic rent...