New evidence on returns to scale and product mix among US commercial banks

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Wheelock, DC; Wilson, PW
• 署名单位: Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - St. Louis; University of Texas System; University of Texas Austin
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF MONETARY ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3932
• DOI: 10.1016/S0304-3932(01)00059-9
• 发表日期: 2001
• 页码: 653-674
• 关键词: returns to scale; economies of scope; Nonparametric; local linear smoother; kernel regression

摘要

This paper presents new estimates of scale and product mix economies for U.S. commercial banks. We compare estimates derived from fitting a translog function to bank costs with estimates derived from nonparametric methods. We refine measures of scale and product mix economies introduced by Berger et al. (J. Monet. Econ. 20 (1987) 501) to accommodate nonparametric estimation, and estimate confidence intervals to assess the statistical significance of returns to scale. Broadly, we find evidence that potential economies have increased since 1985, with scale economies not exhausted until banks have $30-$500 million of assets. We generally fail to reject constant returns for larger banks. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.