University of Economics International institute of Social Studies Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Erasmus University of Rotterdam The Netherland VIETNAM- THE NETHERLANDS PROGRAMME FOR M. IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS ECONOMIES OF SCALE AND INPUT COSTS EFFICIENCY OF COMMERCIAL BANKS IN VIETNAM, 2006-2014 By Dang Tri Dung Supervisor Dr. Vo Hong Duc Thesis submitted for the Degree of Master of Art in Development Economics Vietnam - Netherlands Programme, November 2013 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam VIETNAM- THE NETHERLANDS PROGRAMME FOR M. IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS ECONOMIES OF SCALE AND INPUT COSTS EFFICIENCY OF COMMERCIAL BANKS IN VIETNAM, 2006-2014 By Dang Tri Dung A thesis submitted in Partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Art in Development Economics Under the supervision of Dr.
Vo Hong Duc Vietnam - Netherlands Programme, November 2015 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I hereby declare that the thesis "Economies Of Scale And Input Costs Efficiency Of Commercial Banks In Vietnam, 2006-2014" was made by myself under the supervision of Dr. I also hereby declare that all the data and the results of this thesis are collected and calculated by me. In addition, the conclusions and recommendations are not copied by any research. Đặng Trí Dũng.
The above declaration is affirmed Dr. i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT This study is conducted to determine and quantify the performance of the commercial banks in Vietnam in relation to their economies of scale and the possibility of substitute of inputs in their operations. Data used in this study were collected from 32 commercial banks in Vietnam for the period from 2006 to 2014. The Iterate Semmingly Unrelated Regression (ITSUR) with the support of STATA software is used in this study.
The findings from this study provide empirical evidence to confirm that the operation scale of the commercial banks in Vietnam is increasing return to scale. This means that increasing the scale of operations from the commercial banks in Vietnam may result in an increase of their profitability. This finding appears to be consistent with a merger and acquisition taking place in the Vietnam’s banking system at the moment with the lead of the State Bank of Vietnam. In addition, the commercial banks in Vietnam have demonstrated that cost inefficiencies during operations are problematic.
The three key inputs of commercial banks during their operations are labor, financial capital and fixed assets are all inelastic and as such, they may be substitute for one another. As such, controlling labour costs appears to be essential for the efficient operations of the commercial banks in Vietnam. Empirical findings from this empirical study are drawn to provide some implications for both the commercial banks and the State Bank Vietnam in relation to the scale efficiency of operations for the commercial banks and the leading roles of the central banks in providing guidance and assistance for the entire banking system to grow further. Keywords: Ecnomies of scale; Financial capital; Labor; Fixed assets; Elasticity; Commercial banks; Vietnam.
ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGMENT I sincere thanks to my supervisor Dr. Vo Hong Duc. He was enthusiastically helped and gave me advice during the research process. Vo Hong Duc suggested useful ideas for my research.
In addition, I am also wish to thank to all the lecturer of the Vietnam- Netherlands program. The lecturers helped me to get the knowledge of development economics. Furthermore, the teachers helped me to know the research methods in the economic field. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CONTENTS DECLARATION.
iv LIST OF TABLES. vii LIST OF FIGURES. ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION. The Scope of this Research.
The Structure of the Study .4 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW. Overview of the Commercial Banking System in Vietnam. Studies On The Scale Economies Of Commercial Banks. Studies On The Price Elasticity Of Inputs In Banking.
Translog Cost Function Theory. The Estimation Method Of The Scale Economies and The Elasticity .1 Estimation Method Of The Scale Economies .2 The Own-Price Elasticity And Cross-Price Elasticities .11 CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. The Hypothesis Testing. Identification Of Variable.
The Dependent Variable. The Independent Variable .17 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Data Collection And Expected Results. The Research Methodology.
The Estimation Method .25 CHAPTER 4 EMPIRICAL RESULTS. Descriptive Statistical Analysis. The Data Description. The Summary Statistic.
The Results From Translog Cost Function. The Result Of The Scale Economies. The Own-Price Elasticity and Cross-Price Elasticity .44 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS. Limitations And Future Research .78 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.80 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 1 The Variables Of Equation System That Analyzes The Relationship Between Financial Capital And Labor.15 Table 2 The Variables Of Equation System That Analyzes The Relationship Between Financial Capital And Fixed Assets.16 Table 3 The Variables Of Equation System That Analyzes The Relationship Between Labor And Fixed Assets.16 Table 4 The Dependent Variables.21 Table 5 The Independent Variables.22 Table 6 Statistics Of Variables In The Equation System (9).32 Table 7 Statistics Of Variables In The Equation System (10).33 Table 8 Statistics Of Variables In The Equation System (11).33 Table 9 The Correlation Matrix Of Variables In The Equation System (9).34 Table 10 The Correlation Matrix Of Variables In The Equation System (10).34 Table 11 The Correlation Matrix Of Variables In The Equation System (11).35 Table 12 The Results Of The Equation System (09).36 Table 13 The Results Of The Equation System (10).37 Table 14 The Results Of The Equation System (11).38 Table 15 The scale economies of Vietnam Commercial banks in 2006-2014.41 Table 16 The scale economies of Joint stock commercial banks and State commercial banks in 2006-2014.41 Table 17 The Own-Price Elasticity And Cross-Price Elasticities From Two Outputs Model.44 Table 18 The Own-Price Elasticity And Cross-Price Elasticities From Models Including Loan.45 Table 19 The Own-Price Elasticity And Cross-Price Elasticities From Models Including Deposits.46 Table 20 The Relationship Between The Inputs.47 vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Total Assets And Return On Total Assets Of Commercial Banks In Vietnam 2013-2015.
6 viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABBREVIATIONS IPO: Initial Public Offering NPLs: Nonperforming loans ROA: Return On Total Assets Agribank: Bank For Agriculture And Rural Development Vietinbank: Bank For Industry And Trade BIDV: Bank For Investment And Development VCB: Bank For Foreign Trade of Vietnam OLS: Ordinary Least Squares FGLS: Feasible Generalized Least Squares ix LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION This chapter presents problems statements that the author will solve in this thesis. The problem statements of study will be interpreted through detailed research objectives and research questions. Next, the scope of research and research methods will be presented in order to clarify the research objectives of the thesis. Problem Statements In recent years, the total assets of the commercial banks in Vietnam have increased continuously.
Monthly Report 5-2015 from the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) showed that the total assets of the State Commercial Bank System was 2,896,430 billion VND and total assets of the Joint Stock Commercial Bank System is 2,715,910 billion VND.1 In addition, the average growth rate of the total assets of the State Commercial Bank System from 1/2013 to 5/2015 is 1.14%/month and the Joint Stock Commercial Bank System is 0. These data showed that the commercial banks Vietnam were always trying to increase their scale. The increase of scale creates conditions for using more inputs such as labor, capital and fixed assets. However, the increase of scale does not always bring the expected profits that the commercial banks desire.
The increase of the scale have to be in accordance with capability of the management of the commercial banks. Therefore, the commercial banks can find a best way that combines the inputs to maximize the outputs. If the scale of the banks is less than the one, the increase of scale will facilitate to increase profitability as expected. However, if their scale is currently larger than one, the increase of scale would increase costs and as such, reduce profits.
The research of Akhigbe and McNulty (2003) with data of the commercial banks in the US concluded that small banks will be more profitable than large 1 The data collected from the central bank 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Pasiouras and Kosmidou (2007) study for European banks also provided evidence that the increase of scale would increase their cost and it has a negative impact on bank profitability. In contrast, research by Williams (1998) in the case of foreign branches in Australia concluded that the profitability of branches will have a positive impact from the increase of scale of their parent bank. In the study conducted for Indian banks, Das and Ghosh (2009) also reached a similar view when they concluded that the increase of scale will have positive impact on bank profitability.
In the case the commercial banks of in Vietnam, banks always put effort to increase their scale. However, the return on assets (ROA) appears to decrease. Therefore, it is argued that the authentic approach to determine the scale efficiency of Vietnam’s the commercial banks is an essential issue. The economies of scale condition of the Vietnam the commercial banks should be determined.
Therefore, it is expected that findings from this empirical study will provide further evidence for the commercial banks to make their decisions. Research Objectives This study is conducted to provide the quantitative evidence in relation to the scale economies of the commercial banks Vietnam in terms of profit maximization. In addition, this research also considers the ability of the commercial banks in Vietnam to change the amount of inputs for the purpose of increasing their profitability. In short, this study aims to achieve two key objectives: (i) determining the economies of scale of the commercial banks; and (ii) considering the possibility of varying inputs in order to achieve the operate efficiently.
2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Research Questions In accordance with research objectives, the two relevant research question should be answered are: The first question: Are the economies of scale of Vietnam commercial banks increasing return to scale, decreasing return to scale or constant return to scale? The second question: Are the inputs substitutable? 1. The Scope of this Research The purpose of the study is to establish the quantitative evidence about the scale economies of the commercial banks in Vietnam. Therefore, data from 32 the commercial banks in Vietnam in the period from 2006 to 2014 were collected.
The research covers the period of 2006-2014 mainly because the commercial banks in Vietnam disclose their information relatively sufficient during this period. Some commercial banks are removed in the process of collecting data because they do not provide enough information or their operations were terminated during the research period. Methodology The quantitative approach is used in this study to estimate the scale economies of the commercial banks in Vietnam. Using the translog cost functions adopted in various relevant previous empirical studies, this study uses quantitative approach to determine the impact of factors such as the input prices and control variables to the cost of the commercial banks in Vietnam.
The Iterate Semmingly Unrelated Regression (ITSUR) method is used in this research with the support of STATA software. 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. The Structure of the Study This study includes five chapters with the key contents included in each chapter can be summarized below. The first chapter presents an overview of this study including the Problem Statement, Research Method and Data.
Chapter two presents the literature reviews.