Efficiency and Market Share in the Banking Sector in South East European Countries

The banking sector in South East Europe Countries (SEECs) has changed dramatically from the start of the transition process. The change in market structure has been associated with a change in market shares of banks. This thesis investigates factors that determine a bank’s market share. According to the literature, the main determinant of a bank’s competitive position is its efficiency. Hence, the first part of the thesis investigates a bank’s efficiency and its determinants, while the second part uses these efficiency estimates along with other bank-specific factors and regulatory variables to investigate the determinants of a bank’s market share. The analyses are conducted in eight SEECs for the 2000-2012 period.
Stochastic Frontier Analysis, specifically the Random Parameters Models (Greene, 2005) and the Battese and Coelli (1995) models, are employed for estimation of the bank’s cost efficiency. The empirical findings suggest that the choice of methods of investigation matters, with the Battese and Coelli models performing poorly, which supports the critique that these models are data dependent. The banking sector in Slovenia is the most efficient in the region while that in Serbia is the least efficient.
The thesis then investigates the market share of banks which is argued to depend on “inside” bank determinants (cost efficiency, investment in quality of service, risk-taking, capital, ownership structure, etc.) and “outside” bank determinants (regulatory and supervisory practices and macroeconomic variables). A direct theory of market share is undeveloped in the literature; hence, several related strands of theory are examined to develop a model for estimation. It is argued that a bank’s market share is the result of a dynamic process; hence dynamic panel estimation is applied. The empirical findings suggest that the effect of efficiency on a bank’s market share depends on its size. Taking more risk, being a more capitalized bank relative to the industry average and investment in quality (expanding branch network) contribute to higher market share. Stringent capital requirements, private monitoring and official supervisory power are found to be associated with a less concentrated banking industry. However, the effects of regulation on bank-level market share are found to vary with different risk-taking behaviour of banks.