Are sustainable banks efficient and productive? A data envelopment analysis and the Malmquist productivity index analysis

Abstract

Corporate sustainability is the integration of environmental protection, financial benefit, and social responsibility into management and business operations. There is insufficient evidence for its relationship with operating performance and productivity. Furthermore, it becomes doubtful when investors standardize corporate sustainable strategies. This study evaluates the performance and productivity of sustainable banks, exploring practical issues by providing supporting evidence. A two-stage performance evaluation is employed with the integration of data envelopment analysis (DEA) and Malmquist productivity index (MPI) to evaluate sustainable bank performance and productivity for 9 years (2010-2018) in comparison with non-sustainable banks. DEA is used to define dynamic benchmarking, and MPI builds on time-series analysis. The results of our study reveal that sustainable banks are more efficient and productive. The productivity of sustainable banks and non-sustainable banks was influenced by external and internal factors, respectively.