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The Cambodian banking sector has rapidly expanded in recent decades, although there are concerns about the performance of Cambodian banks and the country’s banking sector. A paucity of empirical evidence to clarify the real issues in the banking sector also makes it difficult to formulate effective policy measures to address any potential problems. This study provides empirical evidence by estimating the cost function and efficiencies of 34 commercial banks over the period from 2012 to 2015. We find that the average cost efficiency scores range from 0.60 when measuring bank outputs as loan and deposit amounts, and 0.77 when measuring bank outputs as interest and non-interest income, suggesting that if they are operated more efficiently, they could cut costs by 40% in fund mobilization and 23% in profit making while keeping the same output level. We also find that the Cambodian banks have experienced an improvement in efficiency scores over the period for both aspects of banking activities. Furthermore, we find that expanding a branch network into rural areas is inefficient for bank management, and holding excessive liquidity is associated with higher efficiency, but diversification in bank business operations is negatively associated with cost efficiency of Cambodian commercial banks.

In this paper, we analyzed the role of banks’ traditional lending on systemic stability. Firstly, we quantified the effect of correlation among banks’ results on systemic risk through Monte Carlo simulation. Secondly, we verified how traditional lending affects banks’ results correlation. Finally, combining the two effects, we assessed the importance of bank traditional lending on financial stability. Our results suggest that banks devoting a higher share of their assets to traditional lending show a lower correlation of their comprehensive income, thus having a mitigation effect on systemic stability.

In the framework of literature devoted to corporate governance and board composition, we take a peculiar viewpoint and focus on the presence of university professors in the governing body of Italian banks. In particular, we test whether the gender quota regulation increased the presence of female professors as directors. We find evidence of a relevant increase in the probability of designating women from the academia in the years immediately following the entry into force of the gender quota regulation in Italy, whereas no significant increase is in place for male professors over the same period. Our results suggest the need to enhance the career opportunities for women up the C-levels in order to fuel diversity in the boardrooms, not only in independent but also in executive roles. In light of the empirical evidence provided, a re-thinking of gender quota regulations would also be advisable in order to better pursue the desired outcomes.