Regulatory Distortions in a Competitive Financial Services Industry

This paper focusses on the interaction between regulation and competition in a simple industrial organization model. We analyze how regulation affects the profitability of financial institutions. We find that information asymmetries impose a heavy regulatory burden on the higher-quality banks, highlighting the importance of fine-tuning regulation. Our other main results point at the importance of a level playing field. Key words: banking, competition, regulation 1