Aljar Meesters

Competition and the Performance of Microfinance Institutions

This article examines the relationship between competition and the performance of Microfinance Institutions (MFIs). We measure competition by constructing a Lerner index. Next, we assess the association between increased competition among MFIs on the one hand and outreach and loan repayment performance of individual MFIs on the other. The empirical investigation is based on data from 362 MFIs in 73 countries for the period 1995–2008. Based on our analysis we do find a general trend of increased competition in microfinance during the last decade. Moreover, our econometric analysis provides evidence that competition among MFIs is negatively associated with their outreach and repayment performance.

Institutions and Bank Performance: A Stochastic Frontier Analysis

This article investigates the impact of institutions on bank efficiency and technology, using a stochastic frontier analysis of a data set of 7,959 banks across 136 countries over 10 years. The results confirm the importance of well-developed institutions for the efficient operation of commercial banks. Furthermore, the insights reveal the impact of institutional reforms in improving bank efficiency. The results are robust to adjustments in country-specific effects, achieved by including country dummies, as well as across different risk profiles. Moreover, they provide empirical evidence in support of the public view of the banking sector.

Financial liberalization, financial regulation and bank efficiency: a multi-country analysis

This article investigates the impact of financial reforms on bank efficiency. More specifically, we distinguish between two different types of financial reforms, i.e. financial liberalization measures and measures of the quality of bank regulation and supervision (i.e. financial regulation), and study their relationship to bank efficiency separately. Moreover, we analyse whether the impact of financial liberalization on bank efficiency is conditional on the quality of regulation and supervision of the banking system. We apply stochastic frontier analysis to calculate bank efficiency at the individual bank level and use a new and detailed database that measures different aspects of financial reforms. The data-set consists of 87 312 bank-year observations covering 61 countries for the period 1996–2005. Overall, we show that the impact of financial liberalization policies on bank efficiency is conditional on the extent to which bank regulation and supervision has been adopted and developed.

Financial Development, Financial Liberalization and Social Capital

ABSTRACT The relationship between financial liberalization policies and financial development is controversial. The impact of these policies differs greatly across countries. In the literature, the quality of formal institutions has been identified as an important source of this heterogeneity, as countries with a weak institutional environment generally fail to benefit from financial liberalization. Using panel data covering 82 countries for the period 1973–2008, we find evidence that social capital may substitute for formal institutions as a prerequisite for effective financial liberalization policies. In particular, we find that during the post Washington-consensus period countries with a high prevailing level of social capital can ensure that financial liberalization positively influences financial development, despite the poor quality of their formal institutions.

Institutions and Bank Performance: A Stochastic Frontier Analysis*: Institutions and bank performance

This article investigates the impact of institutions on bank efficiency and technology, using a stochastic frontier analysis of a data set of 7,959 banks across 136 countries over 10 years. The results confirm the importance of well-developed institutions for the efficient operation of commercial banks. Furthermore, the insights reveal the impact of institutional reforms in improving bank efficiency. The results are robust to adjustments in country-specific effects, achieved by including country dummies, as well as across different risk profiles. Moreover, they provide empirical evidence in support of the public view of the banking sector.

Institutions and bank performance

This article investigates the impact of institutions on bank efficiency and technology, using a stochastic frontier analysis of a data set of 7,959 banks across 136 countries over 10 years. The results confirm the importance of well-developed institutions for the efficient operation of commercial banks. Furthermore, the insights reveal the impact of institutional reforms in improving bank efficiency. The results are robust to adjustments in country-specific effects, achieved by including country dummies, as well as across different risk profiles. Moreover, they provide empirical evidence in support of the public view of the banking sector.

A Non-Linear Stochastic Frontier Model

This paper develops a non-linear stochastic frontier (SF) model. The main advantage of this model over standard SF models is that the model does not need an assumption for the distributional form of the inefficiency component. Another advantage of the developed model is that it can be used to estimate profit functions consistently since it allows for negative profits.The paper shows that the model behaves well on simulated data. Moreover, the suggested model is applied and compared with a standard SF model one European bank data. The obtained efficiency estimates from both models are in line with each other but there are differences.

The Influence of Misspecification in Stochastic Frontier Analysis Models: A Simulation Approach

This paper examines the influence of misspecification in stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) models. It explores the impact of misspecification on frontier and efficiency estimates as well as efficiency scores. Using a simulation approach with several data generating processes the general findings are that variables for which is assumed that they influence technology/heterogeneity should also be included as variables that influence efficiency and the other way around.