Financial sector efficiency: Present concepts and the estimation problem

Abstract

This article presents classification of existing concepts of the efficiency of the financial sector. Proposed the hypothesis that assessments of the microeconomic and informational efficiency of the financial sector are fundamentally based on the concept of transaction costs. Suggested a number of indicators for assessing the macroeconomic efficiency of the financial market and their approbation on the Russian data. We identified four areas for assessing the effectiveness of the financial sector, differing in the level of consideration, recognition of the principle of rationality, accounting for transaction costs: assessing the macro-efficiency of the financial sector; information-efficient market hypothesis; the concept of adaptive markets. The assumption is formulated that the concepts studying the efficiency of financial systems at the micro level, as well as the efficient market hypothesis, are based on the principle of minimizing transaction costs. While there is a significant theoretical backlog on the issue of macroeconomic efficiency of the financial sector, there is a shortage of quantitative estimates, so we tried to offer a number of such indicators, focusing on the functions of financial markets in a developing economy. The article constructs the estimates of the macroeconomic efficiency of the Russian financial market from two sides of the process of transforming savings into investments (attracting investments by enterprises and placing savings by households).