The efficient operation of financial intermediaries--banks, insurance and pension fund firms, government agencies and so on--is instrumental for the efficient functioning of the financial system and the fueling of the economies of the twenty-first century. But what drives the performance of these institutions in today's global environment? In this volume, world-renowned scholars bring their expertise to bear on the issues. Primary among them are the definition and measurement of efficiency of a financial institution, benchmarks of efficiency, identification of the drivers of performance and measurement of their effects on efficiency, the impact of financial innovation and information technologies on performance, the effects of process design, human resource management policies, as well as others.

In the many studies that have been conducted on the provision of financial services for consumers, regulation has emerged as one of the most important factors. The impact of regulation on financial service industries is a major focus of this comprehensive bibliography of relevant source materials in the field of regulatory economics. The bibliography includes entries from the major economics and finance journals published over the past twenty years, major law and business journals,government documents, books, and doctoral dissertations--all indexed according to subject matter--as well as abstracts of many of the papers.The product of extensive research, Heggestad's work is invaluable to university libraries, regulatory agencies, financial institutions, and financial experts, and is an efficient and essential reference tool for anyone wishing to study specific markets and the impact of financial regulation on them.