What Drives Profitability: Level or Growth Efficiency?

Examining the impact of ratio-based efficiency metrics, such as cost-to-income-ratio, and multifactor-based level efficiency on profitability can be potentially misleading. Our examination of Indian banks spanning the period from 2006 to 2023 reveals that profitability is significantly influenced by multifactor-based growth efficiency, rather than level efficiency. Notably, this finding remains robust when using either conventional or risk-adjusted measure of market power.