Tricky Figures: Why the Assessment of Competition in Banking Industries is Rather a Matter of Taste

Economic studies on the degree of competition (DC) in banking systems use various measures which are subsumed under the 1) structure- (e.g. Hirschman-Herfindahl index), 2) conduct- (e.g. Boone indicator) or 3) performance-oriented approach (e.g. Lerner index). Yet, the respective empirical operationalizations of the different DC measures are expected to represent one central construct – the true DC of a banking system. We review 35 studies covering 15 European banking systems from 1998 to 2007. Contrasting the central construct hypothesis, we find substantial differences in the produced DC measures. Thus, the economic validity of derived conclusions regarding the competition intensity is chal-lenged

Diverse Degrees of Competition within the EMU and their Implications for Monetary Policy

Our paper calls attention to the heterogeneous levels of competition in EMU banking systems. We enhanced the ECB MFI interest rate statistics by calculating a lending rate average weighted by loan volumes for each EMU member country. Employing a modified Lerner Index, our unique data set enables us to calculate banks\u27 price setting power in the national lending business alone, instead of measuring market power for banks\u27 total business. For 12 countries, we ultimately show that market power in the exclusive segment of lending is greater than market power in total banking business. In an OLS regression model, we investigate to what extent loan rate variations can be explained by changing degrees of market power during the period 2003-2009. Significant cross-country differences can be observed. We find that changes in the national degree of competition considerably affect funding conditions in the individual countries and therefore hinder a homogeneous transmission of ECB monetary policy

Global Player\u27 im Bankenwesen - ökonomisch sinnvoll oder problembehaftet?

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Produktivitätsmessung von Banken: Die Cost Income Ratio – ein belastbares Performancemaß?

Die Cost-Income-Ratio (CIR) ist zutiefst im Verständnis der Banking Community wie auch der Wissenschaft als geeigneter Produktivitätsindikator verwurzelt. Gleichwohl impliziert die Messung einer Wert- anstelle einer Mengenrelation von Input und Output eine mögliche Verzerrung durch Preiskomponenten – unabhängig von der betrieblichen Leistungsfähigkeit. Dahingehend widmet sich der Beitrag dem Einfluss unterschiedlicher Geschäftsmodelle, ungleicher Lohnniveaus und vor allem divergierender Wettbewerbsverhältnisse auf die CIR. Bestehende Schwachstellen werden aufgezeigt und daran anschließend ein alternativer, adjustierter CIR-Ansatz abgeleitet. Empirisch werden die Zusammenhänge ferner für die privaten Geschäftsbanken aus 13 europäischen Ländern zwischen 1997 und 2009 untersucht

The Transportation Dividend: Transit Investments and the Massachusetts Economy

As home to America's first subway, Boston has been a transit-oriented city for more than a century. In fact, much of our regional economic success is due to the connectivity that a transit system provides. It is no coincidence that the area served by the MBTA houses almost 70 percent of the state's population, offers 74 percent of the jobs, and generates 84 percent of Massachusetts's gross domestic product. The MBTA is the backbone of our economy and any successful strategy for continued growth and prosperity for the region must begin with smart investment in this system.Luckily, the calculus is straightforward as the benefits from our transit system far outweigh the costs we dedicate to support it. A new report from A Better City, made possible through support from both the Barr Foundation and The Boston Foundation, measured the MBTA's performance and economic impact. It found that through travel time and cost savings, vehicular crashes avoided and reduced auto emissions, the MBTA provides an estimated $11.4 billion in value to Greater Boston each year for both transit users and non-users alike. Boston residents experience all of these benefits from the T's annual operating budget of approximately$2 billion.The report also considered the alternative, examining what would it cost if our transit system did not exist. Our economy would require the capital cost of nearly 2,300 additional lane miles of roads and 400,000 more parking spaces. If we needed to build that today, the cost for this vehicular infrastructure would be over $15 billion. The MBTA is a bargain today and for the future

'Global Player' im Bankenwesen - ökonomisch sinnvoll oder problembehaftet?

Although recent experiences made during the ongoing international financial crisis call for smaller entities in banking systems, consolidation still takes place in many industrialized economies. The often stretched argument that large banks are able to establish economies of scale as well as econo-mies of scope, ignores at least the risks of financial intermediaries becoming ‘too big to fail’ or ‘too interconnected to fail’. Our analysis presents reliable evidence that even the assumption that big banks are less inefficient than small ones is far away from being convincing. We apply a range of indicators to test for both performance and risk taking capability of banks in different financial sys-tems. Our findings suggest empirical merits of diversified banking systems and higher systemic risk for financial industries dominated by global players.consolidation, bank performance

Clusteranalyse als Instrument zur Identifizierung von Geschäftsmodellen am Beispiel von Landes- und Kantonalbanken

Angehalten von der Frage, inwieweit die schweizerischen Kantonalbanken als geschäftspolitisches Vorbild für die deutschen Landesbanken dienen können, umfasst der Beitrag zwei ineinandergreifende Analysebereiche: Im ersten Schritt wird das Geschäftsmodell beider Bankengruppen unter Bezugnahme der nationalen Rahmenbedingungen, der zentralen Charakteristika und (gesetzlichen) Alleinstellungsmerkmale dezidiert erfasst, deskriptiv-statistisch eingeordnet und auf Basis der referenzwert-gestützten Clusterverfahren analysiert. Um ein umfassendes, geschlossenes Bild zu erhalten, werden anschließend beide Bankengruppen einem ausführlichen Performance-Vergleich unter Nutzung einer adjustierten Cost-Income-Ratio unterzogen. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Kantonalbanken trotz ähnlicher Aufgaben wesentlich stärker im klassischen einlagenbasierten Kreditgeschäft aktiv sind – einem Geschäftsbereich der im deutschen öffentlichen Bankensektor jedoch bereits originär durch die lokalen Sparkassen abgedeckt wird und nur subsidiär durch die Landesbanken zu bedienen ist

Le système bancaire allemand et la crise financière

La récente crise de la finance mondiale a laissé une profonde empreinte. Et les discussions sur les mesures les plus adéquates à adopter pour éviter que de tels dysfonctionnements se reproduisent à l’avenir sont en cours. Mais si on excepte les premières ébauches, telles qu’elles se dessinent par exemple dans le cadre des accords du G20, rien ne permet de déceler un progrès significatif dans la régulation du marché (mondial) de la finance ni non plus dans la réforme pourtant indispensable des systèmes financiers. A maintes reprises, par le passé, le système bancaire allemand s’était attiré les critiques pour sa prétendue inefficience et la cœxistence des banques privées, de caisses d’épargne (Sparkassen) et de banques coopératives (Genossenschaftsbanken), considérées comme dommageable à sa productivité (voir par exemple Brunner et al., 2004 ; Sachverständigenrat, 2008). Or dans la situation actuelle, ce « système à trois piliers » s’est révélé facteur de stabilité. Car c’est justement l’existence de toutes ces ‘petites entités’ si souvent décriées qui a protégé le système bancaire allemand contre une crise systémique de grande ampleur. Face aux turbulences que traverse le marché de la finance mondiale, il paraît judicieux de détailler le rôle et les missions du secteur public au sein d’un système bancaire à la structure polycentrique afin de rendre ses spécificités plus compréhensibles aux lecteurs peu familiers des réalités allemandes. Il convient également de mieux identifier les fonctions macro-économiques qu’exercent les Sparkassen à la différence des autres acteurs en présence, qui soit ne les remplissent pas, soit ne les exercent pas de leur propre initiative dans une ampleur comparable

Microsatellite instability, KRAS mutations and cellular distribution of TRAIL-receptors in early stage colorectal cancer.

Thus, we evaluated the immunofluorescence pattern of TRAIL-receptors and E-cadherin to assess the fraction of membrane-bound TRAIL-receptors in 231 selected patients with early-stage CRC undergoing surgical treatment only. Moreover, we investigated whether membrane staining for TRAIL-receptors as well as the presence of KRAS mutations or of microsatellite instability (MSI) had an effect on survival and thus a prognostic effect. The fact that the receptors for the TNF-related apoptosis inducing ligand (TRAIL) are almost invariably expressed in colorectal cancer (CRC) represents the rationale for the employment of TRAIL-receptors targeting compounds for the therapy of patients affected by this tumor. Yet, first reports on the use of these bioactive agents provided disappointing results. We therefore hypothesized that loss of membrane-bound TRAIL-R might be a feature of some CRC and that the evaluation of membrane staining rather than that of the overall expression of TRAIL-R might predict the response to TRAIL-R targeting compounds in this tumor. As expected, almost all CRC samples stained positive for TRAIL-R1 and 2. Instead, membrane staining for these receptors was positive in only 71% and 16% of samples respectively. No correlation between KRAS mutation status or MSI-phenotype and prognosis could be detected. TRAIL-R1 staining intensity correlated with survival in univariate analysis, but only membranous staining of TRAIL-R1 and TRAIL-R2 on cell membranes was an independent predictor of survival (cox multivariate analysis: TRAIL-R1: p = 0.019, RR 2.06[1.12-3.77]; TRAIL-R2: p = 0.033, RR 3.63[1.11-11.84]). In contrast to the current assumptions, loss of membrane staining for TRAIL-receptors is a common feature of early stage CRC which supersedes the prognostic significance of their staining intensity. Failure to achieve therapeutic effects in recent clinical trials using TRAIL-receptors targeting compounds might be due to insufficient selection of patients bearing tumors with membrane-bound TRAIL-receptors

A comparison between two representatives of a set of graphs: median vs barycenter graph

Trabajo presentado al Joint IAPR International Workshop on Structural, Syntactic and Statistical Pattern Recognition (SSPR&SPR) celebrado en Esmirna (Turquía) del 18 al 20 de agosto de 2010.In this paper we consider two existing methods to generate a representative of a given set of graphs, that satisfy the following two conditions. On the one hand, that they are applicable to graphs with any kind of labels in nodes and edges and on the other hand, that they can handle relatively large amount of data. Namely, the approximated algorithms to compute the Median Graph via graph embedding and a new method to compute the Barycenter Graph. Our contribution is to give a new algorithm for the barycenter computation and to compare it to the median Graph. To compare these two representatives, we take into account algorithmic considerations and experimental results on the quality of the representative and its robustness, on several datasets.This work was supported by projects: 'CONSOLIDER-INGENIO 2010 Multimodal interaction in pattern recognition and computer vision' (V-00069), 'Robotica ubicua para entornos urbanos' (J-01225).Peer Reviewe