Abstract

The paper studies competitive behaviour in the Italian banking market for the period 1991-2005 by estimating a structural conjectural variation model containing a behavioural parameter to assess the market conduct of the top 10 Italian banking firms. The results indicate that in spite of their noteworthy size and significant market share, these banks have been characterised by a more competitive conduct than the Bertrand-Nash outcome: this is in line with the results of the latest literature of the field, for which in the banking industry there is often no conflict between competition and concentration.