Title: Concentration measures in emerging banking

Authors: Mohamed Bilel Triki; Samir Maktouf

Addresses: Community College, University of Bisha, Bisha, Saudi Arabia; Faculty of Economic Sciences and Management, University of Tunis El Manar, Sfax, Tunisia ' Faculty of Economic Sciences and Management, University of Tunis El Manar, Tunis, Tunisia

Abstract: In this study, we investigate the sensitivity of different concentration measures, such as classical index concentration and spatial index concentration, to varying regimes for Zipf's exponent (∝) for the Pareto-type distribution of bank sizes. We establish relationships between each concentration measure and Zipf's exponent by introducing the Riemann zeta function and calculating the elasticity for each index. We prove that the spatial concentration index is the most robust for varying regimes. Therefore, the choice of an appropriate concentration index must be carefully considered before drawing inferences about the relationship between concentration and banking fragility.

Keywords: emerging banking; classical index concentration; spatial index concentration; Zipf's law.

DOI: 10.1504/IJFMD.2019.101237

International Journal of Financial Markets and Derivatives, 2019 Vol.7 No.1, pp.54 - 67

Received: 23 Jan 2018
Accepted: 10 Feb 2019

Published online: 29 Jul 2019 *

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