Information Asymmetry and Market Power in the African Banking Industry

Date
2017-12-24
Authors
Boateng, Agyenim
Asongu, S.
Akamavi, R.
Simen, V.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elsevier
Peer reviewed
Yes
Abstract
This study investigates the role of information sharing offices and its association with market power in the African banking industry based on a panel of 162 banks from 42countries for the period 2001–2011. Five simultaneity-robust estimation techniques are employed: Two Stage Least Squares; Instrumental Fixed Effects to control for unobserved heterogeneity; Instrumental Tobit regressions to control for the limited range in the dependent variable; Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) to control for persistence in market power; and Instrumental Quantile Regressions (QR) to account for initial levels of market power. The following findings have been established from non-interactive regressions. First, the effects of information sharing offices are significant in Two Stage Least Squares, with a positive effect from private credit bureaus. Second, the GMM results suggest that public credit registries increase market power. Third, from Quintile Regressions, private credit bureaus consistently increase market power throughout the conditional distributions of market power. Given that the above findings are contrary to theoretical postulations, we extend the analytical framework with interactive regressions in order to assess whether the anticipated effects can be established if information sharing offices are increased. Our extended findings show a negative net effect from public credit registries on market power in GMM regressions, and negative net impacts from public credit registries on market power in the 0.25th and 0.50th quartiles of market power.
Description
The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.
Keywords
Information sharing, Market Power, Information Asymmetry, Africa
Citation
Boateng, A., Asongu, S., Akamavi, R., Simen, V. (2018) Information Asymmetry and Market Power in the African Banking Industry. Journal of Multinational Financial Management, 44, pp.69-83.
Research Institute
Finance and Banking Research Group (FiBRe)