As the governance of financial institutions is becoming an important issue, there are many papers empirically investigating the governance issues of banks, which are stock companies. However, cooperative structured financial institutions (co-ops), which have a unique governance structure...

To discipline managers, various governance measures are being developed. They include stock options, shareholder lawsuits, hostile takeovers, and outside directors. In the literature, some studies have found evidence supporting the introduction of these measures, but others have found evidence...

This study investigates the efficiency of Japanese credit cooperatives using a stochastic directional distance function approach and compares the results obtained from a slack-based data envelopment analysis model (SBM). Moreover, it focuses on the differences in the four groups classified by a...

Since 2003, the Financial Services Agency (FSA) has set relationship banking enhancement program as an important strategic task to improve the functions of regional financial institutions. In this enhancement program, the FSA recommended that regional financial institutions introduce new...

This paper reports a survey result conducted in May 2012. We sent a questionnaire to 3,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), whose main business sector is manufacture and which locate in Aichi Prefecture, one of the largest economic regions in Japan. 803 SMEs answered this...

This paper aims to assess the technical efficiency of Japanese trust banks by using the stochastic distance function approach, which is suitable for analyzing complex trust banks but has never applied for Japanese trust banks. Although the trust banking industry has been one of the most...

Few studies have investigated whether Japanese banks affiliated with bank holding companies are more efficient and profitable than independent banks. The present paper tests this hypothesis by using both a stochastic frontier approach and a market valuation approach. First, our results suggest...

We investigate the effect of strategic investors on bank efficiency in the context of regional economic development. The data on Chinese city commercial banks operating regionally are well-suited for the study. Our findings suggest that strategic investors significantly increase efficiency in...

Because of the unique corporate governance feature of mutual institutions, managers are expected to maximize their own interests at the expense of other stakeholders’ interests. However, this study finds that managers of Japanese mutual banks do not behave as suggested.

In this study, we investigate the market characteristics of prefectures in which non-local regional banks of other prefectures choose to enter and the motivations of such banks for doing so, considering the Japanese government’s requirements for regional financial institutions to play an...