Pricing the Cost of Deposit Insurance and Assessing Moral Hazard Effect: Evidence from Banking Sector in Sudan

The primary aim of this paper to evaluate the cost of deposit insurance premium and assess moral hazard effect in the banking sector in Sudan. The analysis of moral hazard in this paper is based on two types of risks, credit default risk, measured as the ratio of non-performing loans to the total size of loans for each bank, and operational risk measured as technical inefficiency. The findings of the research indicate there is a positive association between insurance coverage premium and increase in each of these two risks, implying evidence of moral hazard effect. A policy implication of this result is that the moral hazard behavior in the banking sector can be mitigated by changing the current policy of flat rate deposit insurance premium to risk based insurance premium policy.