This Working Paper gives insights into the concepts of productivity and efficiency. Both concepts are popular measures for evaluating productive units, either on macro or micro level. This paper provides clear definitions for both concepts and outlines key areas of interest in this context, such...

The recent years have been extremely difficult for banks. Competition has increased and, in addition, last year the global financial market crisis hit the industry, from which many banks did not recover yet. As a consequence, financial institutions are looking for ways to cut costs and to...