Niveau: Supérieur, Doctorat, Bac+8
1Is There a Lasting Gap in Bank Efficiency between Eastern and Western European Countries ? Laurent Weill1 LARGE, Université Robert Schuman, Institut d'Etudes Politiques, 47 avenue de la Forêt-Noire, 67082 Strasbourg Cedex, France. Abstract: This paper aims to compare the efficiency of banks from Western European countries and Eastern European countries to assess the gap in performance between both categories of banks. We measure cost efficiency on a sample of 640 banks from 11 Western European and 6 Eastern European countries with the stochastic frontier approach. We also test the possible influence of environmental variables and risk preferences on the efficiency gap. Our conclusions are as follows: (a) there exists a gap in bank efficiency between Eastern and Western European countries, (b) this gap is hardly explained by differences in environment or risk preferences, suggesting that the main source of differences is managerial performance (c) the efficiency gap was reduced between 1996 and 2000 for 4 among the 6 Eastern European countries. Keywords: banking, efficiency, stochastic frontier approach, transition. JEL Classification: G21, P34 1. Introduction Banking sectors in transition countries of Eastern Europe have undergone major transformations during the 1990s. At the beginning of the transition, several key reforms were implemented to restructure the banking sectors in these countries. A two-tier banking system was implemented, separating the functions of central bank and commercial banks, while privately-owned banks were allowed.
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