No. 2/2014
5
EDITORIAL
Dear readers,
It is my big pleasure to introduce another issue of the scientific journal Financial
Assets and Investing. Even though the global financial crisis caused many
difficulties, it brought many challenges both for countries and the economists.
At the moment when it finally appears that the Czech and world economy has
emerged from the crisis, it is time to analyse data from the times of crisis and
to evaluate them in comparison with pre- and post-crisis times. The issue
contains three scientific articles which are devoted to the current issues from
banking and financial markets and evaluate the current state with respect to
the crisis and pre-crisis period.
The first article, An Insight into SBM Efficiency of Slovak Commercial Banks,
written by Martin Boďa and Emília Zimková, represents a case study, in
which 11 organizational units of the Slovak banking sector over the years
2000–2011 are evaluated in terms of technical efficiency that they exhibit in
their operations from the standpoint of the profit approach employing the SBM
model.
The second article, Concentration of Banking Sector and Loan Markups in Short
Term: an Example from Poland by Krzysztof Drachal, presents an analysis of
the relationship between the concentration of the banking sector and banks'
markups (the difference between the rate offered by banks and the reference
rate fixed by the Monetary Council) on offered loans on monthly data during the
period from 2009 to 2013 using simple linear regression techniques.
The last article submitted by Axel Büscher, Eric Frère, Gerrit Hellwig and
Svend Reuse, Commodity Indices – The End of an Era?, evaluates and
compares the traditional and commodity indices using the classical approach of
the volatility and the Value at Risk for measurement and logarithmic returns for
the performances. The study tests if commodities can diversify a portfolio any
longer.
I wish you a pleasant and useful time spent reading and studying this issue.
Petr Valouch