Manish Mittal and Aruna Dhade made a comparative study on Profitability and productivity in Indian Banks.

A five years period (1999 -00 to 2003-04) has been selected for evaluating the performance. In their study they found that the improved profitability is the only key parameter for evaluating performance from the shareholders point of view. In our study, we found that the public sector banks are less profitable than the public s ector and foreign banks in terms of overall profitability (Spread Burden ratio) but profitability is improving over the last 5 years

Analysis of the Efficiency and Profitability of the Japanese Banking System prepared by Elena Loukoianov. The paper analyzes the efficiency and profitability of Japanese banks from 2000-06. It uses a non-parametric approach, the data envelopment analysis (DEA) to analyze banks cost and revenue efficiency. One possible reason for the weak profitability of J apanese banks is their low level of risk taking. This paper presents the data on the level of profitability of Japanese banks and then examines the level of risk taking of (i) four segments of the Japanese banking sector and (ii) banks in selected industri al countries. The data, which are present in terms of core profit, average return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), and net interest margin, indicate the low level of profitability of Japanese banks .