The Efficiency of foreign and domestic banks in Central and Eastern Europe: evidence on economies of scale and scope

ENWe model the efficiency of domestic and foreign banks in Central and Eastern Europe, in terms of economies of scale and scope. We estimate and test the model on a panel of 273 foreign and domestic banks located in nine European transition economies during 1995–99. The main findings are threefold. First, overall, banks in the sample economies exhibit a reasonable degree of efficiency. Second, we generally reject the hypothesis that foreign banks are more efficient than domestic banks in these economies. Third, foreign ownership is hardly an important factor in reducing the banks’ total costs.