This paper first empirically investigates the cost structure of the Greek banking sector. Secondly, it provides measures of economies (diseconomies) of scale and quantifies technical change and its sources. Finally, this paper measures total factor productivity growth and identifies its sources. Bank production is presented with two different approaches (the intermediation and the production approach) which are used to specify a translog cost function. The two different translog cost models are estimated through the full information maximum likelihood method of estimation on pooled time series and cross sectional data. The results obtained are not significantly affected by model specification. Both models indicate significant economies of scale and negative annual rates of growth in technical change and in total factor productivity.(JEL G24, G21); Int'l Advances in Econ. Res., 10(1): pp. 1-15, Feb. 04. ©All Rights Reserved

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This study identifies determinants of the rate of return on U.S. Saving and Loan (S&L) assets during the 1970?97 period. The Instrumental Variables (IV) estimation reveals that this rate of return is an increasing function of the spread between the S&L mortgage interest rate and the S&L cost of funds, the regulatory S&L capital?asset ratio, and the percentage growth rate of real GDP. It is negatively affected by the Tax Reform Act of 1986 and positively affected by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act of 1991. Based on these findings, certain policy implications and general conclusions are suggested. (JEL G20, G21) Int'l Advances in Econ. Res., 10(1): pp. 16-27, Feb. 04. ©All Rights Reserved

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This paper examines the effect of ownership structure on corporate governance and performance of privatized enterprises in transition. The data are taken from a survey conducted in 2001 on 202 medium and large firms in Ukraine for the period 1998?2000. The ownership structure is measured by the percentage of shares held by each type of owner (state, managers, workers, Ukrainian concentrated outsiders, foreign concentrated owners, and stake?holding shareholders). Performance is measured by sales per employee. Regression analysis is used to test the hypothesis that concentrated outside ownership influences performance positively and to detect non?linear effects of ownership variables on performance. In contrast, with important previous studies on enterprise restructuring in Ukraine [Estrin and Rosevear, 1999], significant ownership effects on performance are found. Insider ownership (being a special case of stakeholding ownership) is found to have a significant non?linear effect on performance???positive within a lower range but negative from a threshold close to majority ownership onwards. In general, Ukrainian outside owners do not have a significant effect on performance. However, stakeholding ownership by customers affect sale prices and performance negatively. The most robust results are obtained for the effects of concentrated foreign ownership, both for levels of the respective variables in each year and for changes from one year to the other. The impact of foreign ownership on performance is significantly non?linear: its effect is positive only up to a level that falls short of majority ownership. It is concluded that this non?linearity is due to an institutional environment still adverse to foreign direct investment. (JEL P31, L33, G30) Int'l Advances in Econ. Res., 10(1): pp. 28-42, Feb. 04. ©All Rights Reserved

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The lagging development of many minority communities has had an adverse effect on economic growth in the United States. One factor historically associated with creating or exacerbating this minority problem is the unwillingness of banks to service minority communities adequately. The federal government used two initiatives to address banks' reluctance to aid minorities: the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) that ended the practice of redlining and required all federally regulated banks to demonstrate that they served the convenience and credit needs of their local communities, particularly minorities, women, and other underserved groups, and the establishment and preservation of minority owned banks that were expected to be more sympathetic to the needs of their communities. This paper evaluates the extent to which minority banks have met the needs of minority communities. The assessment is conducted in the context of the ratings received by minority banks on their Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) audits. Through the use of CRA audits, the performance of minority banks is also compared to the performance of the general banking community to determine the validity and success of the government's minority banking initiative. Analysis of CRA audit ratings also compares the performance of minority banks among different ethnicities. (G20); Int'l Advances in Econ. Res., 10(1): pp. 43-57, Feb. 04. ©All Rights Reserved

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Popular in the academic literature and financial press, the credit market discipline hypothesis holds that credit markets, through risk premia increasing in debt level, constrain governments from borrowing and thus, impose fiscal discipline on sovereign borrowers. While several papers document rising risk premia, none have investigated the consumption response. This paper fills this gap by using data on U.S. states' risk premia from 1973?98. An optimizing model is formulated, whereby states intertemporally smooth consumption in the face of interest rates which increase with debt. Deviations from optimality are considered by allowing for governments which consume out of contemporaneous resources. In both cases, credit market discipline is rejected. Rejection is robust to sample splits based on ideology and the stringency of balanced budget requirements. (JEL E62) Int'l Advances in Econ. Res., 10(1): pp. 58-71, Feb. 04. ©All Rights Reserved

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This paper analyzes whether international monetary policy coordination is the best response to economic interdependence. The paper develops a macroeconomic model in which countries show different preferences regarding objectives when faced with asymmetric disturbances and analyzes in strategic terms how monetary policy can deal with real, monetary, and supply?side shocks. It further shows how the desirability of monetary policy coordination depends on the presence of asymmetric shocks and also on the nature of disturbances, the channel of transmission, and the asymmetry of preferences. Finally, the paper derives the conditions under which monetary policy coordination proves to be desirable.(JEL E52, E61, F42) Int'l Advances in Econ. Res., 10(1): pp. 72-82, Feb. 04. ©All Rights Reserved

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