Years ago, I recommended that my City, my Polis, Gloucester, MA, never sell its natural resources to any outsider. Last year, with the passing of Fidel Castro, I saw a possibility for Cuba to become finally free. Naturally, I urged Cubans not to repeat the errors made by Russia and China at the...

Abstract German (English abstract is added below) Arbeitslosigkeit gilt als eines der schwerwiegendsten gesellschaftlichen Probleme unserer Zeit. Doch welche Gründe liegen, trotz der über die Jahre eingeleiteten Maßnahmen zur Bekämpfung der Arbeitslosigkeit, für die anhaltende...

This paper investigates the market structure of Islamic banking industry in Malaysia during 2001-2005 and evaluates the degree of competition using the H-statistic by Panzar and Rosse (1987). The estimated H-statistics for the whole sample periods are positive ranging from 0.38 to 0.62 and the...

This paper provides event study window analysis of pre- and post-merger bank performance in Singapore by employing Financial Ratio Analysis and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach. The findings from financial ratio analysis suggests that the merger has not resulted in a higher profitability...

This paper aims to estimate efficiency of the Slovak commercial banks in the period 2001-2005. The paper uses data obtained from annual reports of 13 Slovak banking institutions. For the practical estimation we applied the parametric Stochastic Frontier Approach and Cobb-Douglas production...

The paper addresses the issue of French banks efficiency, compared to their homologous from Europe and the United States. The analysis is realized on a sample formed by the ten biggest banks from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States, over the period 1994-2006....

This paper presents of theoretical specification of a quadratic loss function based on forward looking rational expectations to model the underlying dynamics of operational performance of the banking industry. As an empirical application we examine the determinants of total operating costs...

We employ the stochastic frontier methodology and estimate alternative profit efficiency in the banking industry of four new European Union Member States, namely the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and the Slovak Republic, over the period 1999-2003. Our results show that structural reforms in...