A Slacks-based Measure DEA Methodology for Identification of Returns to Scale in the Slovak Banking Sector

Abstract

Taking into consideration that knowing the nature of scale of operations is important both to size optimization and to technical efficiency measurement, the paper aims to identify for individual commercial banks of the Slovak banking sector the scale of their operations as exhibited by their production activities during the period from 2000 and 2012. To this end, the DEA procedure of Tone and Sahoo utilizing the concept of the degree of scale elasticity is enhanced and combined with the framework of the SBM model. The analysis of scale is conducted for the major 11 Slovak commercial banks under the prism of the production approach to banking operations, in which the economic assumption that three solid phases can be singled out in the development of the Slovak banking sector is made. The results confirm that the largest Slovak commercial banks were in the investigated period already “too large” so as to gain potentially some benefit from expanding their depository and creditory services by increasing their inputs.