The aim of this paper was to analyse the relationship between market concentration and market interest rate. Taking into thought the relationship between the level of concentration within a market and the level of competition, it can be deduced that an increment in concentration results in a decrease in competition. In order to test the above mentioned relationship, the authors used a panel dataset covering the period 2010Q1-2019Q4. The set includes quarterly data of all banks that operated in the Republic of Serbia. First of all, a correlation analysis was applied to determine whether there is a quantitative agreement between interest rates and concentration measures, and also a regression analysis i.e., econometric evaluation of panel regression models. In order to test the hypothesis, a total of 12 regression equations were applied. Results indicate that that the concentration indicators have a statistically significant and negative impact on the overall active interest rate in only two regression models, which is inadequate to support the hypothesis that there exists a systematic influence of concentration in the banking industry on interest rates. As a conclusion, the regression analysis imposes that the variations of the total loan interest rate can be explained to the greatest extent by the systematic and robust influences of the key policy rate of the NBS and the interannual inflation rate for the given quarter, as well as by the robust tendency of a linear decline over time.

中文翻译：

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银行集中度与利率之间的关系

本文的目的是分析市场集中度与市场利率之间的关系。考虑到市场内的集中度和竞争程度之间的关系，可以推断，集中度的增加会导致竞争的减少。为了测试上述关系，作者使用了涵盖 2010 年第一季度至 2019 年第四季度的面板数据集。该数据集包括在塞尔维亚共和国运营的所有银行的季度数据。首先，应用相关分析来确定利率和集中度指标之间是否存在定量一致性，并应用回归分析，即面板回归模型的计量经济学评估。为了检验该假设，总共应用了 12 个回归方程。结果表明，仅在两个回归模型中，集中度指标对总体主动利率具有统计显着的负向影响，不足以支持银行业集中度对利率存在系统性影响的假设。回归分析得出的结论是，贷款总额利率的变化最大程度地可以解释为国家统计局关键政策利率和当季通胀率的系统性、稳健性影响。随着时间的推移呈线性下降的强劲趋势。这不足以支持银行业集中度对利率存在系统性影响的假设。回归分析得出的结论是，贷款总额利率的变化最大程度地可以解释为国家统计局关键政策利率和当季通胀率的系统性、稳健性影响。随着时间的推移呈线性下降的强劲趋势。这不足以支持银行业集中度对利率存在系统性影响的假设。回归分析得出的结论是，贷款总额利率的变化最大程度地可以解释为国家统计局关键政策利率和当季通胀率的系统性、稳健性影响。随着时间的推移呈线性下降的强劲趋势。