Impact of Firm Attributes on the Efficiency of Brokerage Houses

Financial markets exist in order to bring together buyers and sellers of securities. Financial intermediaries, also known as financial institutions play an important role in financial markets. The most important contribution of financial intermediaries is a steady and relatively inexpensive flow of funds from savers to final users or investors. Thus efficiency of financial intermediaries is of importance for efficient markets. Brokerage houses efficiency is closely related to efficiency of financial markets due to the transaction costs and speed of transacting. This study analyzes the factors influencing the efficiency of brokerage houses by using Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA). The results show that several firm attributes have impact on efficiency. The results indicate that age of brokerage houses and numbers of employees have positive impact on efficiency, however, other firm attributes such as number of branches, firm size, financial leverage, and service ratio (Stock transactions/Total transaction) have negative impact on efficiency of brokerage houses.