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Business & Economics

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ASSET DIVERSIFICATION AND THE EFFICIENCY OF BANKING SECTORS IN EU COUNTRIES
Jaroslav Belas, Beata Gavurova, Kristina Kocisova, Milica Delibasic

ABSTRACT. In the past, the pressures to investigate and evaluate the effectiveness of the bank have not been as strong as banks have been able to work in their own environment. In a period of growing competitive environment and changes in economic conditions in countries, the banking sector must adapt to economic development. Measuring the efficiency of the banking sector should help determine the performance of its units and look for ways to improve it because the efficient banking sector is capable of coping with negative shocks and contributing to the stability of the financial system. These aspects have encouraged us to carry out our research, which we present in part. The main objective of the contribution was to examine and evaluate the relationship between the diversification of banks' assets and their effectiveness in the reference period 2008-2015, quantified by the non-parametric DEA method, in order to find out how the structure of assets impacts on the efficiency of individual banks. We used panel regression to process data. When compiling the model, we primarily looked at asset items through which the banking sectors diversified their portfolios. The results of analyses have highlighted important determinants of the efficiency of the banking sector. We quantified the impact of changes in the structure of assets of individual banks to increase their effectiveness. These findings are valuable findings for financial and economic policy makers in the country, bank system regulators, and banking institutions for which measurement and effectiveness assessment are keys to strengthening their strategic positions both nationally and internationally.

KEYWORDS: asset diversification, bank sector efficiency, debt crisis, banking system performance, asset structure, DEA.

JEL classification: G21, C14, C61.