Ali Ataullah
Published: 2014
Total Pages:
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This paper provides a comparative analysis of evolution of technical efficiency in commercial banking industry in India and Pakistan during 1988-1998, a period characterised by far-reaching changes in financial sector brought about by financial liberalisation. Data Envelopment Analysis is applied to two alternative input-output specifications to measure technical efficiency, and to decompose technical efficiency into its two components, pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency. We also check the consistency of our estimated efficiency scores by examining their relationship with three traditional non-frontier measures of bank performance. In addition, we examine the relationship between bank size and technical efficiency. Our main findings are: (1) technical efficiency of overall commercial banking industry improved in both the countries; (2) public sector banks in India witnessed improvement in both pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency, (3) public sector banks in Pakistan witnessed improvement in scale efficiency only; (4) pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency of private sector banks, foreign and domestic, in both the countries improved after liberalisation; (5) due to high non-performing loans, banks are more efficient in generating loans and advances than in generating income from these assets, and (6) importance of size has declined after the implementation of financial liberalisation.