| dc.description.abstract | The international transportation industry involves various sectors, shipping
being one with particular characteristics which differentiates it from others
especially as relevant capital risk is concerned. Within this scope, shipping
banks are required to assess a number of factors in order to limit the risk from
loans, considering the investment capital required. The efficiency of shipping
banks is particularly important as it may affect the borrowing level and consequently
the financial situation and investment activity in shipping market.
This paper examines the Technical Efficiency (TE) of 71 banks operating worldwide
in the maritime sector from 2005 to 2010, which is the period that the
shipping industry reached its peak and one of its lowest point, making extremely
difficult to secure debt finance in shipping, by using Data Envelopment
Analysis (DEA) and presents the factors which may affect their technical
efficiency, through the application of Regression Analysis. Based on the paper
results, most banks during the study period are technically inefficient, whereas
TE is proved to be higher under the assumption of variable returns to scale
(VRS DEA model) when comparing to constant returns (CRS DEA model).
Statistically significant variables are total deposits and total assets for both TECRS
and TE-VRS and ROE (Return On Equity) for TE-VRS, providing significant
information regarding factors on which management should further
focus, in order to maintain and reinforce technical efficiency with respect to
their strategy for financing shipping sector. | en_US |
