Institutional Quality, Increasing Share of Private Banks and Banking System Stability in Iran

Banking stability is considered as one of the most important economic topics of every country. Increasing share of private banks is a factor which can influence banking stability. This paper investigates the relationship between increasing share of private banks and banking stability across different levels of institutional quality in Iran and using unbalanced panel dataset. Accordingly, the generalized method of moments and a panel smooth transition regression model were used to estimate. The results obtained through the generalized method of moments indicated that increasing share of private banks, is negatively associated with bank stability. Furthermore, an improvement of the institutional quality can reduce the adverse influence of increasing share of private banks on bank stability. The results obtained through the use of the panel threshold regression model further revealed that institutional quality has a threshold value which can affect the relationship between share of private banks and bank stability.