Bank Efficiency, Ownership and Market Structure : Why Are Interest Spreads So High in Uganda?

Beck, Thorsten ; Hesse, Heiko

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ADVERSE SELECTION;    AGRICULTURE;    ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION;    BAD DEBT;    BALANCE SHEET INFORMATION;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4027
RP-ID  :  WPS4027

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Using a unique bank-level data set on the Ugandan banking system during 1999-2005, the authors explore the factors behind consistently high interest rate spreads and margins. While foreign banks charge lower interest rate spreads, they do not find a robust and economically significant relationship between privatization, foreign bank entry, market structure, and banking efficiency. Similarly, macroeconomic variables can explain little of the over-time variation in bank spreads. Bank-level characteristics, on the other hand, such as bank size, operating costs, and composition of loan portfolio explain a large proportion of cross-bank, cross-time variation in spreads and margins. However, time-invariant bank-level fixed effects explain the largest part of bank variation in spreads and margins. Further, the authors find tentative evidence that banks targeting the low end of the market incur higher costs and therefore higher margins.