تغییرات تنظیم مقررات و بهره وری از بخش بانکی در شبه قاره هند

This study seeks to measure changes in productivity and technical efficiency levels within banking sectors of the Indian sub-continent: specifically India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, over the period 1993–2001. This study is taken in the context of a number of sweeping reforms across the sub-continent in the early 1990s, and the possible effect this may have had upon efficiency levels. A Malmquist index of total factor productivity (TFP) change over the time period in question is employed, along with a Tobit regression, in order to determine whether these measures of regulatory and financial reform has had the desired effect upon the Indian sub-continent in terms of productivity and efficiency levels. It is found that technical efficiency both increases and converges across the Indian sub-continent in response to reform. India and Bangladesh experienced immediate and sustained growth in technical efficiency, whereas Pakistan endured a reduction in efficiency during the middle years of the study, before rebounding to levels comparable to the rest of the sub-continent in the latter years of the study. These results indicate that the measures employed to modernise the financial sectors of these respective countries have had the desire effects upon levels of technical efficiency.

Efficiency plays an important role in the operation of firms. If a policy of shareholder wealth maximisation is to be pursued, it is implied that maximum efficiency is extracted from a firm's resources during the production process, or that the minimum quantity of inputs is used to achieve a desired level of output. Studies on efficiency using Malmquist indices have been relatively forthcoming, including analysis of such diverse industries as Mexican Ports (Estache, Tovar de la Fe, & Trujillo, 2004), Columbian power distribution systems (Pombo & Taborda, 2006) and Norwegian motor vehicle inspection agencies (Odeck, 2000). However, there has been little conducted in the way of research on efficiency within banking sectors of developing economies (Berger & Humphry, 1997). This is unfortunate, as banks and financial institutions play a hugely important economic role in providing financial intermediation and economic acceleration and convert deposits into productive investment (Podder & Mamun, 2004). For this reason, the study of banking in developing economies entails a greater significance.

This paper has sought to examine the effect of significant reform upon technical efficiency within the Indian sub-continent over the time period 1993–2001, using both a combined dataset covering all three countries and separate datasets for each country. The results estimated in this paper suggest that technical efficiency levels have risen in Pakistan and India over time, and although the Pakistani banking sector experienced a slight dip in efficiency during the mid and late 1990s, it shows signs of recovery in the first years of the 21st century. It is believed that these changes in efficiency could be a result of the positive effect of significant regulatory reforms introduced to the banking sectors of all three countries throughout the 1990s.