Shadow prices of non-performing loans and the global financial crisis

Purpose - This paper aims to determine the opportunity cost borne by US commercial banks to reduce non-performing loans (NPLs) by one unit within the global financial crisis framework. Design/methodology/approach - To achieve this aim, the authors use the directional output distance function to estimate the technical efficiency while considering NPLs as undesirable output. Then, they estimate the shadow prices of NPLs by using the envelope theorem and solving the revenue function. Findings - The results indicate that medium-sized banks are the most efficient, while small banks are the most inefficient ones. Moreover, the shadow prices of NPLs of large banks are higher than those of small and medium-sized banks. This implies a more elevated cost when lessening bad loans in large banks. This is more prominent during the crisis given that the shadow prices of NPLs of large banks have risen sharply over that period. Practical implications - Shadow prices have important managerial implications given that they display the amounts of required reduced revenues to lessen NPLs. Accordingly, banks’ managers are called to reduce these loans by paying more attention when choosing their customers. Originality/value - With the absence of an observable market price for bad loans in financial literature, the shadow price notion offers an adequate measure to evaluate them. To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that provides an estimation of the shadow price of NPLs in the US banking sector.