 Economic profit and performance measurement in bankingNew England Economic Review, 1998, issue Jul, 35-53 Abstract: Successful bank operation requires managers to weigh complex trade-offs between growth, return, and risk. In recent years banks increasingly have adopted innovative performance metrics based on the concept of economic profit, rather than accounting earnings to assist managers in making such difficult and complex decisions. Banks hope in this way to elicit better decision-making by managers and also too align managerial behavior more closely with the interests of shareholders. This article analyzes the use of economic profit for measuring the performance of banks, focusing on the allocation of equity capital to products, customers, and businesses. The author reviews the use of economic profit to evaluate performance, to price transactions, and to reward managers. He describes in detail one performance measurement and incentive system and then goes on to discuss the shortcomings of performance metrics founded on economic profit, which may distort banks' investment and operating decision-making. He concludes that banks need to recognize the ambiguities of such calculations and be prepared to create and apply multiple specialized performance measures. Keywords: Bank; management (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedbne:y:1998:i:jul:p:35-53 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article More articles in New England Economic Review from Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Contact information at EDIRC. |
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