University of Zagreb, Faculty of Economics and Business Zagreb
Abstract
This paper analyzes the evolution of competition in the Tunisian banking sector in the
period 2000 - 2008, which is a period of deregulation, liberalization and consolidation of
the sector. For this purpose, we use two indicators of the competition from the theory of
the industrial organization (the Lerner index and the Panzar and Rosse’s H-statistic). The
empirical evidence does not permit us to reject the existence of monopolistic competition.
The evolution of Lerner index over the period of study shows a low tendency to concentration.
The movements of the mergers of the banking institutions seem to be slow, as a big
effort of cleaning their balance sheets remains to be achieved before banks can merge