The Evolution of the Russian Saving Bank Sector During the Transition Era

Following the 1988 banking reform in Russia there was an enormous increase in the number of (registered) commercial banks. The Russian savings bank sector went through a period of shakeout after the August 1995 interbank crisis. Large banks were able to expand their market shares in the deposits market as a result of scale advantages and advertising. Entrants unsuccessfully sought to gain market share by having high deposit rates.banking;transition economies;industry evolution;savings market

Interest and Hazard Rates of Russian Saving Banks

The number of (registered) commercial banks in Russia increased at a fast pace after the 1988 banking reform. Many of these banks lacked supervision and operated with dangerously low funding capital. In this paper we investigate the determinants of the hazard rates of banks active on the Moscovian deposits market during the 1994-97 period. We find that market share and duration have had a negative effect on the hazard rate, while the interest rate offered has had a positive effect.banking;transition economies;hazard rates

Competition and Market Dynamics on the Russian Deposits Market

In the early transition era in Russia entry barriers for commercial banks were about absent. It resulted in the mushrooming of hundreds of small, poorly-endowed and inexperienced banks. In this paper we address the question whether the claimed benefits of low entry barriers - competition and market dynamics - have resulted. We use a sample of commercial saving banks for the 1994-97 period. We conclude that there were important mobility barriers and that the removal of entry barriers did not lead to intensified competition.market shares;banking;transition economies

Overoptimism among Founders: The Role of Information and Motivation

This study empirically investigates factors that influence overoptimism across nascent entrepreneurs. We distinguish between two main groups of determinants (information, motivation) and three types of overoptimism (income, psychological burden, leisure time). Findings indicate that entrepreneurs who have relevant business information are more realistic and that entrepreneurs with a high level of general knowledge, acquired through education or previous (unrelated) entrepreneurial experience, are more overoptimistic. External advice and business planning do not appear to limit subsequent overoptimism. Entrepreneurs are less overoptimistic about the pecuniary or non-pecuniary benefits of self-employment when these benefits are closely related to the initial motivation for starting up the business.information;motivation;nascent entrepreneurs;overoptimism

The Lag Structure of the Impact of Business Ownership on Economic Performance in OECD Countries

This paper investigates the impact of changes in the number of business owners on three measures of economic performance, viz. employment growth, GDP growth and labor productivity growth. Particular attention is devoted to the lag structure. The analysis is performed at the country level for 21 OECD countries. Our results confirm earlier evidence on three stages in the impact of entry on economic performance: an initial direct positive effect, followed by a negative effect due to exiting capacities and finally a stage of positive supply-side effects. The net effect is positive for employment and GDP growth. Changes in the number of business owners have no effect on labor productivity.Entrepreneurship;Business Ownership;Economic Growth;Lag Structure

Technological Inefficiency and the Skewness of the Error Component in Stochastic Frontier Analysis

This paper concentrates on negatively skewed one-sided distributions as an explanation of the occurence of positive (negative) skewness in the case of stochastic production (cost) frontier analysis. It takes as example the binomial distribution that can have negative or positive skew and derives the method-of-moments estimators