This paper employs a mixed two-stage approach to estimate and explain differences in the cross-country efficiency of ten Australian, five UK and eight Canadian banks over the period 1988 to 2008 using stochastic distance, cost and profit frontiers. The first stage estimates efficiency scores for...

A two-stage estimation procedure is employed to evaluate non-bank financial institution efficiency. In the first stage, maximum-likelihood estimates of an econometric cost function are obtained for a cross-section of 150 Australian credit unions. The results indicate that a typical credit...

Maximum-likelihood estimates of a stochastic cost frontier function incorporating efficiency effects are obtained for 22 Australian building societies in the period 1992-1995. Cost inefficiency scores indicate that building societies' costs were 20% above what could be considered necessary. The...

This paper examines the role of student characteristics, personality, and perceptions of the banking and finance profession in determining the choice of an undergraduate finance major. The data employed is drawn from a survey of first-year business students at a large Australian university....

This paper uses suburb-level quarterly data to model residential water demand in Brisbane, Australia, from 1998 to 2003. In this system, residential consumption is charged using a fixed annual service fee with no water entitlement followed by a fixed volumetric charge per kilolitre. Water demand...