An analysis of the relevance of off-balance sheet items in explaining productivity change in European banking

The 1990s have witnessed a significant growth in bank income generated through non-traditional activities, especially for large EU universal banking institutions. Using the non-parametric Malmquist methodology this study analyses the impact of the inclusion of off-balance sheet (OBS) business in the definition of banks' output when estimating total factor productivity change indexes. Whereas the results reinforce the prevalent view in the recent literature, indicating that the exclusion of non-traditional activities leads to a misspecification of banks' output, the impact of the inclusion of these activities varies. Overall, the inclusion of OBS items results in an increase in estimated productivity levels for all countries under study. However, the impact seems to be the biggest on technological change rather than efficiency change. © 2005 Taylor & Francis

Obelix vs. Asterix : size of US commercial banks and its regulatory challenge

Big banks pose substantial costs to society in the form of increased systemic risk and government bailouts during crises. So the question is: Should regulators limit the size of banks? To answer this question, regulators need to assess the potential costs of such regulations. If big banks enjoy substantial scale economies (i.e., average costs get lower as bank size increases), limiting the size of banks through regulations may be inefficient and likely to reduce social welfare. However, the literature offers conflicting results regarding the existence of economies of scale for the biggest US banks. We contribute to this literature using a novel approach to estimating nonparametric measures of scale economies and total factor productivity (TFP) growth. For US commercial banks, we find that around 73 % of the top one hundred banks, 98 % of medium and small banks, and seven of the top ten biggest banks by asset size exhibit substantial economies of scale. Likewise, we find that scale economies contribute positively and significantly to their TFP growth. The existence of substantial scale economies raises an important challenge for regulators to pursue size limit regulations

Income Diversification and Bank Performance: Evidence from Italian Banks

Diversification, bank risk, bank return, non-interest income, G21,

New Evidence on the Determinants of Bank Risk

Commercial banks, risk, transparency, volatility,

Banks’ Risk Culture in Residential Mortgage and Cross-Selling Policies: Evidence from the Euro Area

A specific case study on cultural differences among bank business models is provided by Umberto Filotto, Claudio Giannotti, Gianluca Mattarocci, and Xenia Scimone in Chap. 12 “Risk culture in different bank business models: the case of real estate financing”. The research focuses on the relevance of cross selling to lenders exposed to the residential mortgage market. The analysis of the lending industry during the financial crisis scenario is a useful stress test for evaluating the business model reaction driven by corporate culture. The authors compare trends in cross selling and real estate loans for a representative set of European banks and show that some banking features, including size and real estate loan specialization, may affect the link between residential real estate loans and cross selling

Rating Performance and Bank Business Models: Is There a Change with the 2007–2009 Crisis?

We investigate the relationship between a bank’s rating and its business model and hypothesize that relationship changed through the crisis. We use bank ratings by Fitch, Moody’s and S&P’s from 2006 to 2009 and proxy the business model via an index given by a banks’ traditional income share in total income. In a sample of 241 listed banks from 39 countries, controlling for sovereign ratings and other bank characteristics, we find that banks with higher values of the index had: (1) similar ratings to other banks until 2007; (2) better rating performance through 2008–2009. The evidence supports our hypothesis