Should Banks Be Diversified? Evidence from Individual Bank Loan Portfolios

Posted: 8 Jun 2004

See all articles by Viral V. Acharya

Viral V. Acharya

New York University (NYU) - Leonard N. Stern School of Business; New York University (NYU) - Department of Finance; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI); National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Anthony Saunders

New York University - Leonard N. Stern School of Business

Iftekhar Hasan

Fordham University ; Bank of Finland; University of Sydney

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Abstract

We study the effect of loan portfolio focus vs. diversification on the return and the risk of 105 Italian banks over the period 1993-1999 using data on bank-by-bank exposures to different industries and sectors. We find that diversification is not guaranteed to produce superior performance and/or greater safety for banks. For high-risk banks, diversification reduces bank return while producing riskier loans. For low-risk banks, diversification produces either an inefficient risk-return tradeoff or only a marginal improvement. Our results are consistent with a deterioration in the effectiveness of bank monitoring at high risk-levels and upon lending expansion into newer or competitive industries.

Keywords: Focus, Diversification, Monitoring, Bank risk, Bank return

JEL Classification: G21, G28, G31, G32

Suggested Citation

Acharya, Viral V. and Acharya, Viral V. and Saunders, Anthony and Hasan, Iftekhar, Should Banks Be Diversified? Evidence from Individual Bank Loan Portfolios. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=555692

Viral V. Acharya (Contact Author)

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New York University (NYU) - Department of Finance ( email )

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Anthony Saunders

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Iftekhar Hasan

Fordham University ( email )

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