Liberalization, Privatization and the Efficiency and Productivity of Egyptian Banks: A Non-Parametric Approach

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the performance of the Egyptian banks during a period characterized by changes in economic policies. The paper investigates whether the liberalization policies embarked upon by the Egyptian government in the early 1990s have had a positive or negative impact on the performance of the Egyptian banks in terms of efficiency and productivity progress/regress. It will also examine whether the liberalization impact has influenced different forms of banks' ownership and sizes with consistent magnitude. Another objective of this paper is to examine the impact of the privatization process of the joint-venture banks, which started at the end of 1995, on the efficiency and productivity performance of the banking sector overall and on joint-venture banks in particular.

Keywords: efficiency and productivity analysis, data envelopment analysis, banking, financial development