Evidence on the Objectives of Bank Managers

The paper attempts to present empirical evidence on the behavior of bank managers - are they risk neutral and act on behalf of shareholders to maximize profits or risk averse and trade-off profits for risk reduction? The paper examines the bank's choice of financial capital since increasing financial capital reduces the risk of insolvency. A multiproduct cost function which incorporates asset quality and the risk faced by uninsured bank depositors is derived from a model of utility maximization. The authors' interpretation of the model is that it explicitly models a kind of x-efficiency. Because a bank may desire to trade-off risk and return, it may not use the cost minimizing level of financial capital. The authors extend the model of Hughes and Mester (1993) to allow a bank's choice of financial capital level to reflect its preference for return versus risk. The model consists of the cost function, share equations, and demand for financial capital equation, which are estimated jointly. The authors find evidence that banks in all size categories are acting in a non-risk neutral manner. Estimates of scale and scope economies based on this model show economies of scale at banks in all size categories. The authors also find evidence of product-specific scope econo-mies, cost complementarity between some outputs, and cost non-complementarity between other outputs.