Función de costos: un estudio para los bancos comerciales uruguayo

In the present paper a translog cost function is estimated for uruguayan commercial banks in the period 1992-1997 using a panel data set of annual observations. Taking into account the multiproduct nature of the banking firm scope economies, complementarities between products, scale economies, technical change, substitution and demand elasticities are calculated. For an aggregate product we calculate total factor productivity with parametric and non parametric methods. As the translog cost function is a local lineal aproximation to the function, the population is divided into different groups: commercial banks, private banks and two groups suggested by cluster analysis. The more relevant results are that, for the average firm, economies of scale and complementarity between consumer lending and corporate lending is found. Neutral technical change cannot be rejected when operating costs are used and we obtain a reduction in technical change when total costs are considered. Differences in total factor productivity are found for the different groups. Also, there is a strong elasticity of substitution between physical capital and labour.