Relative Efficiency of Foreign and Domestic Banks

Pradeep K Keshari M Thomas Paul This paper seeks to examine empirically whether foreign banks on an average operate with greater efficiency and so attain higher levels of productivity and profitability. For this purpose, first, a stochastic frontier production function for the banking industry is estimated and bank-wise technical efficiency is computed. In the second stage, the authors compare the mean efficiency level of foreign banks with that of domestic banks. In addition, foreign and domestic banks are also compared with respect to the other measures of performance, namely, productivity and profitability.