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This paper presents an analysis of Loan Loss Provisioning (LLP) behavior of European banks across 26-member states to determine how bad management and Technological Innovative Progress (TIP) has affected bank risk management. Technological improvements in banking have seen advances in both back and front office operations with respect to lending. This is created through increased disembodied technological change capturing improvements in both non-financial and risk management technologies. We find, using a new dynamic LLP model that European banks employed bad management practices in relation to their lending and monitoring practices, leading to higher losses on loans (through increased LLPs). However, the relationship between TIP and LLPs indicates that those banks which increased their technological efficiency with respect to costs had a greater ability to recognize bad loans, and were therefore able to subsequently increase LLPs. That is, improving technology mitigated the impact of bad management practices in European banks.

This paper investigates loan loss provisioning (LLP) behaviour by Vietnamese banks during the period 2006-2012. We test the capital, income-smoothing and cyclical management hypotheses and examine whether the inclusion of X-efficiencies and/or risk control variables influences provisioning behaviour. When the X-efficiency estimates are incorporated into the models, Vietnamese banks do not exhibit counter-cyclical or capital management manipulation by managers, but counter cyclical income smoothing. Yet, the inclusion of risk control variables in x-efficiency scores (either equity or reserves for impaired loans) supports the addition of capital management hypotheses.JEL Classification: C33: G01: G28: G21

We investigate the impact of banks' ability to minimise costs on asset quality, by assessing the temporal relationship between these variables in a sample of Italian banks over the period 2006-2015. We offer new insights into the channels through which bank efficiency affects nonperforming loans by disentangling the short-term component of cost efficiency from its longterm component. We show that non-performing loans afflicting Italian banks can be explained by both efficiency components. A decrease in short-term cost efficiency precedes a worsening in banks' asset quality, implying that regulators should consider adopting short-term efficiency as an early warning indicator of a deterioration in asset quality. We also present evidence of a tradeoff between long-term efficiency and bank non-performing loans, which suggests that the removal of exogenous hindrances that prevent banks from allocating optimal levels of resources to the management of their loan portfolio should be a main policymakers' objective.