An analysis of the relevance of off‐balance sheet items in explaining productivity change in post‐merger bank performance: evidence from Malaysia

By applying a non‐parametric Malmquist Productivity Index to a sample of all post‐merger Malaysian banks over 2001‐2003, this paper attempts to investigate to what extent the inclusion of OBS items in the output definition of banks affect the estimated total factor productivity change indexes. It is found that the inclusion of OBS items results in an increase in estimated productivity levels for all banks under study. However, the impact seems to be the largest on technological change rather than efficiency change.