This paper investigates the dynamics between key regulatory and supervisory policies and various aspects of commercial bank efficiency and performance for a sample of 22 EU countries over 2000–2008. In the first stage of the analysis we measure efficiency by employing the Data Envelopment...

This paper investigates the dynamics between the financial freedom counterparts of the economic freedom index drawn from the Heritage Foundation database and bank efficiency levels. We rely on a large sample of commercial banks operating in the 27 European Union member states over the 2000s....

Financial intermediation in Latin America has experienced profound changes due to financial liberalization, which also resulted in further financial deepening. The bulk of the literature on financial deepening focuses on its macroeconomic dimension and its implications for growth. In this paper,...

High interest rate spreads and low credit availability to the private sector have been persistent problems in Latin American banking in spite of the recent financial sector reforms. This paper considers the determinants of interest rate margins focusing on their relationship with structural and...