VOLUME IX
SPRING 2001

OFF-BALANCE SHEET ACTIVITIES IN THE SPANISH BANKING SYSTEM
 
JUAN FERNANDEZ DE GUEVARA
Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas
 
This paper focuses on an activity that has received little attention in the banking literature, namely Off-Balance Sheet (OBS) activities. The main purpose of the paper is to test the sensitivity of profit efficiency measures when the OBS activities are included in the output definition. An important increase in the efficiency scores is be found when the definition of production is extended. Furthermore, the measures of efficiency are calculated taking into account the different specialisation of the institutions by grouping them in clusters.
 
Keywords: off-balance sheet activities, efficiency, specialisation, banks.
JEL classification: G00, G21.

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