Role of bank regulation on bank performance: Evidence from Asia-Pacific commercial banks

Abstract

As the banking industry is an essential financial intermediary, the efficient operation of banks is vital for economic development and social welfare. However, the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC) triggered a reconsideration of banking systems as well as the role of government intervention. Academic literature has paid little attention to the banking industry in the Asia-Pacific region in the context of bank efficiency. This study employs double bootstrap data envelopment (DEA) analysis to measure bank efficiency and examine the relationship between regulation, supervision, and state ownership in commercial banks in the Asia-Pacific region over the period of 2005 to 2014. Our results indicate that excluding off-balance sheet activities in efficiency estimations lead to underestimating pure technical efficiency and overestimating the scale efficiency of banks in the Asia-Pacific region. Cross-country comparisons reveal that Australian banks exhibit the highest levels of technical efficiency while Indonesian banks have the lowest average. Our bootstrap regression results suggest that bank regulation and supervision are positively related to bank technical efficiency, while state ownership is not significantly related to bank efficiency. Furthermore, our findings show that tighter regulation and supervision are significantly related to higher efficiency for small- and large-sized banks. Before and during the 2008 GFC, tighter regulation and supervision were found to be associated with lower bank efficiency. However, the relationships between regulation and supervision become positive after the 2008 GFC, suggesting the positive impact of government intervention in the recovery of banking industries in the Asia-Pacific region.