A data envelopment analysis of the global microfinance industry

Abstract

This work compares the technical efficiency of a global sample of private and publicly listed Microfinance Institutions (MFIs), and publicly listed commercial banks of a similar scale and geographical location. Two important research questions are addressed. The first one is: are public MFIs more efficient than nonpublic MFIs?; and, the second one is: how efficient are MFIs relative to "comparable" commercial banks? Our results indicate that publicly listed MFIs are more efficient than private MFIs when the latter operate at a suboptimal scale. That is, listed MFIs are able to grant the same amounts of loans, invest as much, and have the same range of profits but, at the same time, are more technologically efficient in reducing expenses and use less assets. Moreover, the results indicate that listed commercial banks are the least efficient of all types of financial services providers included in the studied sample.