The efficient operation of financial intermediaries--banks, insurance and pension fund firms, government agencies and so on--is instrumental for the efficient functioning of the financial system and the fueling of the economies of the twenty-first century. But what drives the performance of these institutions in today's global environment? In this volume, world-renowned scholars bring their expertise to bear on the issues. Primary among them are the definition and measurement of efficiency of a financial institution, benchmarks of efficiency, identification of the drivers of performance and measurement of their effects on efficiency, the impact of financial innovation and information technologies on performance, the effects of process design, human resource management policies, as well as others. (view table of contents)

Product Description: 3 While all of these explanations seem to have merit, there is one dominant reason why the percentage of GDP and employment dedicated to services has continued to increase: low productivity. According to Baumol's cost disease hypothesis (Baumol, Blackman, and Wolff 1991), the growth in services is actually an illusion...read more

Product Description: The problem of predicting interregional commodity movements and the regional prices of these commodities has intrigued economists, geographers and operations researchers for years. In 1838, A. A. Cournot (1838) discussed the equilibrium of trade between New York and Paris and noted how the equilibrium prices depended upon the transport costs...read more