Produktivität und Effizienz in Banken –Terminologie, Methoden und Status quo

This Working Paper gives insights into the concepts of productivity and efficiency. Both conceptsare popular measures for evaluating productive units, either on macro or micro level.This paper provides clear definitions for both concepts and outlines key areas of interest inthis context, such as efficiency measures, components of efficiency and the appropriate levelsfor the analysis. On this basis the author introduces and discusses a selection of technicalapproaches for measuring productivity and efficiency in a non-technical manner. Variousparametric as well as non parametric approaches are summarized. In addition, the two mostpopular efficiency measurement techniques, Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) and DataEnvelopment Analysis (DEA) are compared against each other. The current status of measuringproductivity and efficiency in banking is discussed and results are summarized. Key findingsfrom productivity and efficiency analyses for German banks are outlined. Furthermorethe underlying models and assumptions in relation to efficiency measurement in banking areintroduced and discussed. Finally it is proposed to increase the focus on analysing processeswith respect to productivity and efficiency. This approach is providing an additional point ofview and gives additional insights into the productivity and efficiency in banking.