factors-influencing-the-profitability-of---domestic-and-foreign-commercial-banks-in---the-european-u.doc

国内外商业银行在欧盟中的赢利因素
Fotios Pasiouras ,Kyriaki Kosmidou
在过去几年中，许多因素促成了欧洲联盟(欧盟)银行业日益激烈的竞争，其中最重要的因素就是违规，是由第二次欧洲银行和金融服务的指令引起的关于信贷机构的成立、运作和监督。这个指令列出了在单一欧洲金融市场的原则和对欧洲所有银行机构提供平等的竞争条件，结果现在银行的竞争出现在以前无法进入的国内外市场中。此外，当欧元的采用加速产业变化的同时，最近的一些技术进步为经济规模和范围提供了更多的机会。比如，外汇交易所创造的收入已经丧失，而银行产品的定价及服务已变得更为透明，这增强了银行的竞争力。而且，制定宏观经济政策，可以在大多数国家逐步降低通货膨胀和利率。最后，在越来越多的欧洲国家的非金融公司获准提供传统的银行服务，导致进一步提高竞争力。 因此，银行被迫以产生新的产品，寻找新的客户，这也反映在地区和业务范围的持续全面多样化。许多银行也被迫增加了规模，以便通过合并和收购在扩大后的欧洲市场及金融业经历前所未有的水平。
合理的假设是，所有这些变化对在欧盟国家的银行带来了巨大的挑战，银行在其中经营的急剧变化，因此也影响了他们的表现。戈林(2001年)指出，充足的收入，是银行在一个合适的环境中维持其偿付能力、生存、成长和繁荣的需要。考虑到银行业的繁荣和经济的增长，潜在的知识因素能影响银行的盈利能力不仅对银行的管理者，而且对众多利益相关者，如中央银行、银行家协会、政府及其他金融机构，都是必要的。在这段期间，新的欧盟国家将对这些知识因素特别感兴趣，而且他们的经济和银行体系正在经历着根本性的变化。
本文的目的是为了研究早先欧盟银行盈利的决定条件，以及鉴于这项正在进行的一体化进程，在欧盟市场中商业银行受内部因素(如银行的具体特性)和外部因素(即宏观经济和金融市场结构)的影响，运行到何种程度。虽然有越来越多的文献根据我们所知，使用既有效又前缘的办法来研究欧盟银行的利润和成本的有效性，但是当把欧盟作为一个整体来研究时，重点放在研究盈利的决定因素上的文章仍然很少。
为了完成这项工作，我们的论文在几个方面上不同于先前的研究。最重要的是近年来我们还分析了包括1995-2001年期间的研究。
慕尼丽丝和索通(1992年)的其中一个研究考察几个国家的银行盈利的决定因素。监测结果表明，股本回报率、利率的水平、银行集中程度和政府的所有权之间存在明显的联系。在最近的一份研究中，雷乌和门德斯(2001年)调查了葡萄牙、西班牙、法国和德国，发现负债与资产和所有者权益与资产的比率会直接影响利息幅距和盈利能力。他们还发现，经营成本会正面影响利息净幅距，而不会影响利润。而与此意见相反的人认为会影响银行的市场占有率。从宏观经济的变化来看，当名义有效汇率不产生任何作用时，与通货膨胀都是有关联的。失业率对经济衰退有负面的影响，尽管不对利息净幅距会产生作用，但是对于利润也是很重要的。
伍德(2003年)选取了在13个欧盟银行业市场上的一些银行作为样本，来研究其运行情况。结果表明:贷款与资产比率的和贷款损失准备的比例是与银行资产收益率成反比，以及认为具有较高所有者权益的银行是比较为有利的。资金缺口的比率也具有重大意义，对银行的运行也有较大的影响。此外，作者没有发现任何证据来支持结构-行为-绩效的假说。三个宏观经济指标中的两个即利率的变化和国内生产总值的增长对银行产生了负面影响，而利率的水平则对银行产生了积极的影响。戈达德(2004年)探讨在1992-1998年期间的丹麦，法国，德国，意大利，西班牙和英国利润率的影响因素。他们认为，只有微弱的证据证明一致或系统规模效益的关系，以及资本与资产比率及盈利能力之间的关系。关系的重要性，资产负债表外业务和银行的有价证券和利润之间的关系对英国来说是很重要的，但有时却又表现出中立或消极的影响。
近年来， 在许多学术研究中，开始越来越注重运用前沿分析的方法研究金融机构的效率问题。伯杰和汉弗莱(1997年)找出了130项的纲要研究，涉及21个国家、多个时段和不同类型事业单位，实行三个参数(即前沿的随机方法，自由分配办法，厚边界方法)和两个非参数(即数据包络分析，自由处置赫尔法)前沿办法，来决定最佳的实践方法而不是相关的效率测试。一个银行效率的衡量是相对当年业绩最佳的银行进行比较，而且大多数研究侧重于成本效率而非利润效率。最近的一些研究也同时考虑了成本及利润效率(例如，伯杰和汉弗莱，1997年和伯杰和马斯特，1997年)，以及风险变数(例如，伯杰和汉学家，1997年，贝尔格，1992年， 麦卡利斯特和麦克马纳斯，1993年马斯特，1996年和罗，2005年)。
尽管在各种研究中，都考虑到欧盟(鉴于其规模和重要性)，但是目前研究欧盟银行机构的审查的效率的文献还在增加。例如这些研究有彼克(2000年)，马德斯(2002年)，稀雷(2004年)和思坦克拉斯(2005年)。詹妮斯和外尔(1998年)，卡伍罗和罗斯(2002年)，卡素与莫利纽克斯2003年)的研究，现在也很有趣，因为他们把注意力集中在欧盟银行业中。早先的研究，像巴戈(1993年)，帕斯特(1995年)，郎和威尔哲尔(1996年)和迪奇(2000年)的研究，大多集中在选定的市场中或个别国家里，如北欧国家、法国、德国和西班牙等。
其他研究也已经采用类似的技术，来比较国内外银行的效率。哈桑和亨特(1996 年)，马哈江(1996年)，以及昌(1998年)的结论是，外资银行在美国的比国内银行的成本率要低，而赛斯(1992年)和诺勒(1995年)，认为外资银行利润不会比国有银行多。在研究中，像在澳洲市场中类似的结果也存在着。运用DEA萨斯耶(2001年)发现，外国银行将效率不如国内，这一比较的结果由阿基兰(1997年)提出。

参考文献：见原文

2007/Research in International Business and Finance/21 (2)/ 222-237/
Factors influencing the profitability of domestic and foreign commercial banks in the European Union

Fotios Pasiouras ，Kyriaki Kosmidou
Over the last years a number of factors have contributed to the growing competition in the European Union (EU) banking sector. One of the most important factors is deregulation， promoted by the Second European Directive on Banking and Financial services， concerning establishment， operation and supervision of credit institutions. This Directive sets out the principles of banking in the Single European financial market and provides equal competitive conditions for all European banking institutions .As a result banks now compete in previously inaccessible domestic and foreign markets. Furthermore， a number of recent technological advances offered more opportunities for economies of scale and scope while the adoption of euro accelerated the changes in the industry. For instance， income generation from foreign exchange transactions has been lost while the pricing of banking products and services has become more transparent， enhancing competition. Furthermore， the macroeconomic policies that were followed in most countries gradually reduced inflation and interest rates. Finally， in more and more European countries non-financial firms were allowed to offer traditional banking services， leading to further increase in competition. Therefore， banks were forced to generate new products and seek new customers. This is reflected in the continued diversification across geographical areas and business lines. Many banks have been forced to increase in size in order to compete in the enlarged European market and the banking industry experienced an unprecedented level of consolidation through mergers and acquisitions.
It is reasonable to assume that all these changes posed great challenges to banks in the EU as the environment in which they operated changed rapidly， a fact that consequently had an impact on their performance. As Golin (2001) points out adequate earnings are required in order for banks to maintain solvency， to survive， grow and prosper in a suitable environment. Given the relation between the well-being of the banking sector and the growth of the economy， knowledge of the underlying factors that influence banks’ profitability is essential not only for the managers of the banks but for numerous stakeholders such as the Central Banks， Bankers Associations， Governments， and other Financial Authorities. Knowledge of these factors would also be of particular interest to the new EU countries whose economies and banking systems are experiencing fundamental changes during this period.
The aim of this paper is to extent earlier work on the determinants of profitability of banks in the EU and examine to what extent the performance of commercial banks operating in EU markets is influenced by internal factors (i.e. banks’ specific characteristics) and to what extent by external factors (i.e. macroeconomic and financial market structure) in view of the ongoing process of integration and concentration. Although a growing literature uses efficient frontier approaches to examine the profit and cost efficiency of EU banks to our best knowledge， there are only few studies that focus on the determinants of profitability while focusing on the EU as a total.
In order to accomplish this task， our paper differs from the earlier mentioned studies in several aspects. First of all， we include more recent years in the analysis by examining the period 1995–2001.
The study of Molyneux and Thorton (1992) is one of the first that examines the determinants of banks profitability in several countries. The results indicate a positive association between the return on equity and the level of interest rates， bank concentration and the government ownership. In a more recent study， Abreu and Mendes (2001) examine Portugal， Spain， France and Germany and find that loan to assets and equity to assets ratios have a positive impact on interest margins and profitability. They also find that operating costs have a positive impact on net interest margins measures but not on profits measures， while the opposite holds for bank's market share. From the macroeconomic variables， inflation is relevant in all cases， while the nominal effective exchange rate does not have an impact on performance. The unemployment rate has a negative sign in all regressions and is significant in the case of profits although not on net interest margins measures.
Wood (2003) examine the performance of a sample of banks operating in thirteen EU banking markets. The results indicate that loans to assets ratio and the proportion of loan loss provisions are inversely related to banks’ return on assets， as well as that banks with greater levels of equity are relatively more profitable. The funds gap ratio is also significant and positively related to performance. Furthermore， the authors found no evidence to support the structure–conduct–performance hypothesis. Two of the three macroeconomic indicators， the variability of interest rates and the growth of GDP had a negative impact， while the level of interest rates had a positive effect. Goddard et al. (2004) investigate the determinants of profitability in Denmark， France， Germany， Italy， Spain and the UK， for the period 1992–98. They find only weak evidence for any consistent or systematic size–profitability relationship and a positive relationship between capital-assets ratio and profitability. The relationship between the importance of off-balance-sheet business in a bank's portfolio and profitability is positive for the UK， but either neutral or negative elsewhere.
In recent years， there has also been an increase of academic studies that focus on the efficiency of financial institutions using frontier analysis. Berger and Humphrey (1997) outline 130 studies， covering 21 countries， multiple time periods and various types of institutions that applied three parametric (i.e. stochastic frontier approach (SFA)， distribution free approach (DFA)， thick frontier approach (TFA)) and two non-parametric (i.e. data envelopment analysis (DEA)， free disposal hull (FDH)) frontier approaches for determining the best-practice frontier against which relative efficiencies are measured.3 The efficiency of a bank is measured relatively to that of the best-practice banks of similar size， with most studies focusing on cost efficiency rather than profit efficiency. Some recent studies also consider both cost and profit efficiency (e.g.， Berger and Humphrey， 1997 and Berger and Mester， 1997)， as well as risk variables (e.g.， Berger and DeYoung， 1997， Berg et al.， 1992， McAllister and McManus， 1993， Mester， 1996 and Rao， 2005).
Although the EU is considered relatively under researched (given its size and importance) there is now a growing strand of literature that examines the efficiency of EU banking institutions. Examples of such studies are Bikker (2000)， Maudos et al. (2002)， Schure et al. (2004) and Staikouras et al (2005). The studies of Dietsch and Weil (1998)， Cavallo and Rossi (2002)， Casu and Molyneux (2003)， are also interesting as they focus on most of the main EU banking sectors. Earlier studies， as the ones of Berg et al. (1993)， Pastor et al. (1995)， Lang and Welzel (1996)， and Dietsch(2000)， focus mostly on sub-sets of selected markets or individual countries such as the nordic countries， France， Germany and Spain among others.
Other studies have employed similar techniques to compare the efficiency of foreign and domestic banks. Hasan and Hunter (1996)， Mahajan et al. (1996)， and Chang et al. (1998) conclude that foreign banks in the US are less cost efficient than domestic banks， while Seth (1992) and Nolle (1995)， find that foreign-owned banks are not as profitable as domestically owned banks. Similar results were obtained in studies which examined the Australian market. Using DEA Sathye (2001) found foreign banks to be less efficient than domestic， while comparable results were obtained by Avkiran (1997).