Comparing the efficiency of Islamic versus conventional banking: through data envelopment analysis (DEA) model

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to compare the efficiency of Islamic banks and conventional banks under loan base approach and income base approach. Also, it aims to investigate the economies of scales for both banking streams. Further, we investigated the effect of banks specific factors on efficiency, like size of banks, total liabilities of banks, total profit of banks, total markup revenue, total non-markup revenue, total markup expenses and total non-markup expenses. The data for this study was taken from banking statistics of Pakistan for the year 2001 to 2008. For the measurement of efficiency, data envelopment analysis (DEA) was used. For the effect of banks specific factors on efficiency Tobit regression model was used. The finding suggested that, the Islamic banks overall technical efficiency was better than conventional banks under loan base approach. Further, the result showed that Islamic banks had pure technical inefficiency than conventional banks but Islamic banks has high scale efficiency than conventional banks. Under income base approach conventional banks are efficient than Islamic banks. Islamic banks inefficiency was due to pure technical inefficiency. On the other hand only total markup expenses, total liability and ownership has significant impact on overall technical efficiency score under loan base approach. And total liability, total profit and ownership have significant impact on the overall technical efficiency under income base approach. This study is different from other studies in respect that it compares the efficiency of Islamic banks with conventional banks with these variables and under these two different approaches. Key words: Efficiency, Islamic banks, conventional banks, Pakistan, data envelopment analysis.