The Effects of Diversification on Banks Expected Returns
The series Working Papers on Economics is published by the Office for Economic Studies at the Banco de la República (Central Bank of Colombia). It contributes to the dissemination and promotion of the work by researchers from the institution. This series is indexed at Research Papers in Economics (RePEc).
On multiple occasions, these works have been the result of collaborative work with individuals from other national or international institutions. The works published are provisional, and their authors are fully responsible for the opinions expressed in them, as well as for possible mistakes. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Banco de la República or its Board of Directors.
In financial theory, the optimal allocation of assets and its relationship with profitability has been one of the main concerns; the question has always been if banks should focus or diversify their assets. In our case, we would like to answer this question focusing in diversification of the loan portfolio, presenting a theoretical model that considers the possible gains from diversification, while taking in to account the effects of monitoring. Additionally, we present empirical evidence on this matter for the Colombian banking system. According to the model, we find that once the banks have chosen its optimal level of monitoring, expected return is always higher when the bank decides to focus. Additionally, the empirical results suggest that there are no possible gains form diversification in banks cost and that, on average, the effects of focusing the loan portfolio reduces banks return while showing positive effects of focusing on an specific sector.
The series Borradores de Economía is published by the Economic Studies Department at the Banco de la República (Central Bank of Colombia). The works published are provisional, and their authors are fully responsible for the opinions expressed in them, as well as for possible mistakes. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Banco de la República or its Board of Directors.
