BANK COMPETITION AND EFFICIENCY IN THE FYR MACEDONIA

This paper assesses the degree of competition and relative efficiency of the FYR Macedonia's banking system - a sector which has undergone a substantial amount of change since the mid-1990s. In general, the results indicate that competition in the banking sector remains relatively weak and that improvements in bank efficiency have been limited to date. However, the presence of a small number of "pocket banks", which may pursue different objectives than those of standard banking businesses, suggest that these results should be interpreted with cau- tion.