We investigate the consistency of efficiency scores derived with two competing frontier methods in the financial economics literature: Stochastic Frontier and Data Envelopment Analysis. We sample 34,192 observations for all German universal banks and analyze whether efficiency measures yield...

Most previous research on efficiency in banking takes a regulatory perspective. In contrast, this paper investigates the empirical relation between efficiency and profitability in five large economies of the European Union during the period 1998-2005 and discusses the results from the...

There are many studies of bank performance and bank failure in the literature. Most of these studies used banking ratios as variables in their models without giving consideration to their appropriateness, nor was much consideration given to the stability of those ratios through time and across...

The beneficial economic effects of entrepreneurial activity can only be realised if such activity is relatively unconstrained in both product and factor markets, finance has been widely identified as a potential constraint on entrepreneurial activity due to either debt or equity gaps. However,...

This study examines the expectations that both small business firms and bankers have regarding the bank selection process. The purpose of the study is to determine whether or not bankers understand the needs of the small business customer. It is based on a nationwide survey of 115 small business...

This paper examines the characteristics of UK small firm bank finance and the causes of the frequently strained relationship between small firms and banks in the UK. Debt, credit rationing, and call option problems under the UK system are examined. The bank’s solutions including the...

In theory commercial banks exist to resolve asymmetric information problems in credit markets. Because small business firms have much greater information problems than large firms, it is not surprising that they depend almost entirely on banks for external finance needs. Unfortunately, little is...

This article provides an empirical insight on the heterogeneity in the estimates of banking efficiency produced by the stochastic frontier approach. Using data from five countries of Central and Eastern Europe, we study the sensitivity of the efficiency score and the efficiency ranking to a...

This paper investigates (i) whether growth and profitability persist in banking firms, (ii) whether the level and volatility of growth and profitability are bank-size dependent, and (iii) the relationship between growth and profitability of a bank. Using a dynamic panel model estimated by GMM...

The paper investigates the determinants of banking profitability and banking market conditions in Austria. We conduct a panel econometric analysis which allows for testing the hypotheses which have become the most prominent in the literature on bank profitability: the...