No abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to report how banking competition has fared ex post a major consolidation exercise completed during 2002-2004, which led to a complete restructuring of the sector in Malaysia. Nothing is known about the competitiveness of banking system ex post a major consolidation of banks in any country including Malaysia, a middle-income economy. Design/methodology/approach The authors apply two models, the Panzar and Rosse (1997) and the Lerner index (1934). The two competitiveness measures are quite refined, well received by researchers, but has yet been applied to measure banking sector competitiveness of a middle-income country to characterize post-merger behavior using post-global-crisis data set. The data were complemented by documentary analysis, including brand documents, descriptions of internal processes and copies of employee magazine articles. Findings The results indicate that, after 11 years of consolidation, the banking sector is not operating under perfect or monopolistic competition. Malaysia’s banking industry continues to benefit the charter holders at increasingly lower level because a cartel-like environment still provides trade-off of competition costs before 2002/2004 with the costs from a cartel-like industry structures now. There is only a weak evidence that, in recent years, the banking sector is moving toward more competition. Research limitations/implications The chosen area of research is to test the response of the banking sector ex post consolidation after a crisis. It enables researcher to compare results with those of other countries and may not be generalizable. Practical implications The findings reported in this study using corroborating measures for the first time, appear to suggest increasing concentration from consolidation may lead to the undesirable cartel-like industry structure where the exercise of market power in the name of stability may not be welfare promoting. Originality/value This paper fulfills an identified need to study how the banking sector has performed ex post consolidation after a crisis.

This study aims to develop a nuanced understanding of the link between Chinese cultural values, the “Green food” label, and consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for Green food based on the value–attitude–behavior hierarchy model. Structural equation modeling (SEM-AMOS24.0), the bootstrapping test, and the ANOVA test are used to analyze data collected through an on-site questionnaire survey of 402 valid Green food consumers in China. The hypotheses and the theoretical model are verified. The results show that trust in the Green food label directly influences willingness to pay for Green food and indirectly through attitude. Chinese cultural value orientations significantly influence Chinese consumers’ WTP for Green food through both attitude and label trust. The findings provide a valuable reference for Green food suppliers and governments to promote Green food consumption worldwide and to create a more sustainable food production system in China. Although limitations of the cross-sectional study are narrowed using SEM, to fully grasp consumers’ psychological development and the influence of cultural values, a longitudinal study with strict condition controls is recommended for future research.

No abstract