This paper examines the nexus between cost efficiency and economic growth in the Middle East and North Africa region. We apply a causality analysis between cost efficiency and financial deepening using the Generalized Methods of Moments and our findings show a significant and positive causality...

The recent financial crisis has shown that the stability of the investment banking industry plays a key role for the soundness of the financial system as a whole. Do high competition and/or cost inefficiencies increase investment banks' insolvency (and capital) risks? Or, conversely, do...

Investment banks' core functions expose them to a wide array of risks. This paper analyses cost and profit efficiency for a sample of investment banks for the G7 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK and US) and Switzerland prior to the recent financial crisis. We follow Coelli et...