We propose a spatial competition model to study banks' strategic responses to the asymmetric Spanish geographic deregulation process. We find that once the geographic deregulation process finishes, inter-regional mergers between savings banks are optimal whenever the economies of scale...

The U.S. banking industry has been characterized by intense merger activity in the absence of economies of scale and scope. We claim that the loosening of geographic constraints on U.S. banks is responsible for this consolidation process, irrespective of value-maximizing motives. We demonstrate...

We put forward a simple spatial competition model to study banks’ strategic responses to the Spanish asymmetric geographic deregulation. We find that once geographic deregulation process finishes, inter-regional mergers between the savings banks are optimal. We claim that the public good...

This paper investigates the relevance of non-traditional activities in the estimation of bank efficiency levels using a sample of 752 publicly quoted commercial banks from 87 countries around the world, allowing comparison of the impact of such activities under different levels of economic...

This paper attempts to analyse whether banking technology and environmental conditions act as barriers for the entry of foreign banks in each European banking industry. We evaluate how the efficiency score of a representative commercial bank of a given European country changes if it decides to...

This paper examines the impact of regulatory reform on the performance of Spanish savings banks. To this end it uses panel data for the period 1986-1995 and a flexible variable profit function that incorporates time-varying technical efficiency. The focus is whether increased competition brought...

Recent cross-country comparisons of bank efficiency have been based on pooled estimates of banks across countries and have typically assumed a common frontier and that differences in performance among banks are primarily due to disparities in certain country-specific aspects of banking...

This paper presents a model whereby banking firms use various strategies (price and non-price) simultaneously in a monopolistically competitive model of spatial competition when the various strategies are used across different markets in the presence of a multioutput technology. The theoretical...

Modelling and testing whether competitive pressures driven by deregulatory changes make markets more competitive are examined. Departures from competitive markets are modelled via mark-up prices. Empirically, a panel data is used on Spanish savings banking industry that is undergoing...

In the last two decades, the European Union has undergone a major reduction in banking regulation. This paper investigates whether this deregulatory process was associated with increasing similarity, or convergence, of banking industries across the European Union. It reports that the...