ABSTRACT

This article investigates the link between market structure and performance in the Swedish commercial banking industry between 1912 and 1938. During this period, new market regulation was introduced with the intention to encourage large-scale banking. As a result, the industry entered a far-reaching consolidation phase. These market structure changes coincided with industrial development and progress. For this reason, it has commonly been assumed that the new regime fostered banks with capacity to efficiently supply the industry with financial services. However, hitherto, no comprehensive analyses on the actual impact of these policy changes on the performance of the banks have been conducted. We examine this impact by measuring the efficiency of Swedish commercial banks by constructing a Malmquist index based on technical efficiency scores derived from Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). We use fractional regression analysis to examine the impact of market concentration and bank mergers on efficiency. We find that market concentration had a decidedly negative impact on the average efficiency of the Swedish commercial banking industry during this period. While large financial intermediaries may have been necessary to channel capital into the large-scale industrial and infrastructural projects of the time, it came at the cost of increased deadweight losses.

摘要

本文研究了 1912 年至 1938 年瑞典商业银行业的市场结构与绩效之间的联系。在此期间，引入了新的市场监管以鼓励大规模银行业。因此，该行业进入了影响深远的整合阶段。这些市场结构的变化恰逢产业发展进步。出于这个原因，人们普遍认为新制度培养了有能力有效地向行业提供金融服务的银行。然而，迄今为止，尚未对这些政策变化对银行业绩的实际影响进行全面分析。我们通过构建基于数据包络分析 (DEA) 的技术效率得分的 Malmquist 指数来衡量瑞典商业银行的效率来检验这种影响。我们使用分数回归分析来检验市场集中度和银行合并对效率的影响。我们发现，在此期间，市场集中度对瑞典商业银行业的平均效率产生了明显的负面影响。虽然大型金融中介机构可能需要将资金引入当时的大型工业和基础设施项目，但代价是无谓损失增加。我们发现，在此期间，市场集中度对瑞典商业银行业的平均效率产生了明显的负面影响。虽然大型金融中介机构可能需要将资金引入当时的大型工业和基础设施项目，但代价是无谓损失增加。我们发现，在此期间，市场集中度对瑞典商业银行业的平均效率产生了明显的负面影响。虽然大型金融中介机构可能需要将资金引入当时的大型工业和基础设施项目，但代价是无谓损失增加。