Ghana's banking industry has undergone considerable transformation since 1988 as a result of the gradual but steady implementation of financial service reforms. The main purpose of implementing the financial reforms is to build a competitive and stable banking industry to enhance banks' efficiency and ultimately economic growth and development. Using annual (panel) data spanning from 2001 to 2010, this study investigates the degree of bank competition and their determinants in Ghana's banking indusrty using the fixedeffect model and two-step system GMM estimations. The results suggest that Ghana's banking industry is competitively weak. The findings also indicate that market power persistently exists in Ghana's banking industry. Furthermore, bank capitalization reduces bank market power and therefore increases bank competition in Ghana. However, there is no indication that bank size, fee income, loan loss provision ratio and rate of inflation have influence on bank competition in Ghana.

This study examines the causal link between bank efficiency and bank competition. The study estimates bank competition with the Lerner index and bank cost efficiency with data envelopment analysis using annual data over the period 2001-2010. Using system generalized method of moments (system GMM) estimator, the results suggest that bank cost efficiency positively Granger-causes market power and hence causality negatively runs from bank cost efficiency to bank competition indicating that bank cost efficiency precedes bank competition. However, the reverse causality running from bank competition to bank cost efficiency is not supported.