Determinants of Bank Performance in Chile, Colombia, and Mexico

In this chapter, I analyze the behavior of banks in Chile, Colombia, and Mexico between 2005 and 2014. With data from the regulatory institutions of these countries, I show the influence of their institutions on the performance of banks. The World Bank provides two main datasets that measure the institutional characteristics of each country. Their doing business data set computes the ease of doing business while the governance data set measures the effectiveness of government and the perception that people have of their own governments. The results show that voice and accountability, which is a variable that measures the ability of citizens to select their government and participate in society, has a strong effect in the performance of loans. However, these institutional variables seem to have little effect on the volatility of profits.