Regional Differences in the Efficiency of German Savings Banks

Abstract

German savings banks play a key role in financing German SMEs. Accordingly, the analysis of their efficiency is of economic importance. We apply data envelopment analysis to explore the influence of the financial crisis (2007 to 2008) as well as the Eurozone crisis (since the end of 2009) on the efficiency of German savings banks. Although the Malmquist index is on average below one in our sample from 2003 to 2014, we conclude from our efficiency results that German savings banks recovered quickly after the financial crisis as well as the Eurozone crisis. We test for and explain regional efficiency differences between Eastern and Western German savings banks. Since Eastern and Western Germany represent two socio-economically different environments, we control for environmental variables. Our results show that Eastern German savings banks are less inefficient than Western German savings banks since other earning assets, i.e., securities and advances to banks, and refinancing costs are advantageous for their efficiency.