Despite the plethora of efficiency studies in the banking literature, there is no consensus on the preferred approach for the empirical estimation of the frontier (production, cost, profit etc.) of fully efficient firms. The present paper aims to provide an overview of this promising alternative...

There exists a lively debate as for the appropriate architecture of the financial supervision regime, with a long list of theoretical advantages and disadvantages associated with each one of its key dimensions. The present study investigates whether and how bank profit efficiency is influenced...

This paper examines the relationship between the regulatory and supervision framework and the productivity of banks in 22 countries over the period 1999-2006. We follow a semi-parametric two-step approach that combines Malmquist index estimates with bootstrap regressions. The results indicate...

This short paper presents the first attempt to examine empirically the relationship between the level of bank liquidity and the structure of the board of directors, in terms of board size and independence. A novel database on these board characteristics is built that includes banks operating in...

This study investigates whether regulations have an independent effect on bank risk-taking or whether their effect is channeled through the market power possessed by banks. Given a well-established set of theoretical priors, the regulations considered are capital requirements, restrictions on...

We treat the banking system as a traded credit portfolio and calculate systemic risk capital as the amount of capital that insures the portfolio's value against unexpected losses. Using data from the largest global financial institutions, we find evidence of extreme event dependence between...

This study uses a sample of foreign and domestic banks operating in Greece during 1999-2004 to examine the impact of ownership on efficiency. We estimate an input oriented data envelopment analysis (DEA) model under variable returns to scales with inputs and outputs selected on the basis of a...

The recent crisis highlighted, once again, the importance of early warning models to assess the soundness of individual banks. In the present study, we use six quantitative techniques originating from various disciplines to classify banks in three groups. The first group includes very strong and...

This paper uses discriminant and logit analyses to develop prediction models to identify bank acquisition targets. We consider several methodological issues, such as whether the choice of the estimation technique, the selection of variables, the use of raw versus industry relative data, the...

This study investigates the relationship between regulations, competition, and risk-taking in the Central and Eastern European banking sectors between 1994 and 2005. We build an empirical model that employs a non-structural measure of competition, various proxies for regulations and both static...