Why Do Spanish Savings Banks Invest In The Stock Capital Of Publicly Traded Companies?

Abstract

By definition, Savings Banks form part of what is known as the social economy, so their investment policies must logically comply with objective efficiency and other more subjective social criteria. However, at different moments in time, accusations have been launched against their investment policies, claiming that they have ignored both the above criteria. The aim of this paper is therefore to empirically determine, based on a samples of publicly traded Spanish companies, whether said claims are founded or not. We use a qualitative dependent variable model (logit) to analyse the variables explaining the investment performance of savings banks compared with regular banks, and between savings banks according to whether the company is publicly traded or not. The results indicate that investment in the publicly trading companies in our sample does not comply with efficiency criteria based on business returns, but is mere speculation aimed at market gains.