Banking competition and macroeconomic conditions: a disaggregate analysis

In this paper, we aim to assess the competitive conditions in the Italian banking industry in the years 1997–1999, both nationwide and in the standard four macro-regions within the country (North-West, North-East, Center, South and Islands), by employing the Rosse–Panzar H-statistic. The empirical results confirm that Italian banks earn revenues as if they were under conditions of monopolistic competition. They also show that there is a positive relationship between the local economic performance and the degree of competition among banks, given that they appear to behave as perfectly competitive firms where local macroeconomic data reveal lower unemployment rates, greater per capita GDP and lower market loan rates