The Effects of Ownership on Bank Efficiency in Latin America

Catarina Figueira (1) , Joseph Nellis (1) , David Parker (1)

1 School of Management (Economics)

In recent years many countries have privatized their state-owned banks and encouraged foreign investment. This paper investigates the roles of state and private ownership and foreign and domestic ownership on the performance of banks across Latin America. Using a range of financial and economic ratios, data envelopment analysis and regression modelling, the study reveals that by 2001 there was surprisingly little difference in performance between state-owned and privately-owned banks and between foreign and domestically-owned banks. The study also reports significantly different levels of bank performance in different Latin American countries, suggesting that country differences outweighed ownership differences in explaining performance.

Mots clés: Social Sciences & Humanities

Catarina Figueira, Joseph Nellis, David Parker. The Effects of Ownership on Bank Efficiency in Latin America. Applied Economics, 2009, 41 (18), pp.2353-2368. ⟨10.1080/00036840701222546⟩. ⟨hal-00582112⟩