An authoritative introduction to efficiency and productivity analysis with applications in both the banking and finance industry In light of the recent global financial crisis, several studies have examined the efficiency of financial institutions. A number of open questions remain and this book reviews recent issues and state-of-the-art techniques in the assessment of the efficiency and productivity of financial institutions. Written by an international team of experts, the first part of the book links efficiency with a variety of topics like Latin American banking, market discipline and governance, economics of scale, off-balance-sheet activities, productivity of foreign banks, mergers and acquisitions, and mutual fund ratings. The second part of the book compares existing techniques and state-of-the-art techniques in the bank efficiency literature, including among others, network data envelopment analysis and quantile regression. The book is suitable for academics and professionals as well as postgraduate research students working in banking and finance. Efficiency and Productivity Growth: * Provides an authoritative introduction to efficiency and productivity analysis with applications in both the banking and mutual funds industry such as efficiency of Asian banks, cooperatives and not-for-profit credit associations. * Explores contemporary research issues in the area of efficiency and productivity measurement in the financial sector. * Evaluates the most suitable approaches to selecting inputs and outputs as well as selecting the most efficient techniques, such as parametric and non-parametric, to estimate the models.