Bank Office Outreach, Structure and Performance in Regional Banking Markets

Johann Burgstaller (1)

1 Finance Department

This paper studies bank penetration, market structure and banking conduct across Austrian districts. Especially credit cooperatives serve the poorer and less developed rural banking markets, which are more concentrated. Neither differences in market concentration nor in the activity of out-of-market banks can explain the regional dispersion of interest rates, bank profitability and efficiency. A higher bank density is connected to more competition and lower markups, and indicates more efficient banking markets as well. As efficiency is the main determinant of bank profits and competition seems to be (mildly) indicative of stronger regional growth, the preservation of a fair regional bank outreach appears to be an important policy target.

Mots clés: Social Sciences & Humanities

Domaines: Science politique

Johann Burgstaller. Bank Office Outreach, Structure and Performance in Regional Banking Markets. Regional Studies, 2011, pp.1. ⟨10.1080/00343404.2011.607809⟩. ⟨hal-00758599⟩