International Banking and Cross-Border Effects of Regulation: Lessons from the Netherlands

The large and concentrated international activities of Dutch banks make the Netherlands particularly relevant for assessing the outward transmission of prudential policies. Analysis of the quarterly international claims of twenty-five Dutch banks in sixty-three countries over 2000–13 indicates that Dutch banks increase lending in countries that tighten prudential regulation. This result is driven particularly by larger banks, by banks with higher deposit ratios, by lending to advanced economies, and by lending in the post-crisis period. The result is not significant in most other subsamples. These findings suggest that banks react to changes in local prudential regulation via foreign lending—which could come either from regulatory arbitrage or from signaling effects of prudential policy on country risk. This contributes to the case for the reciprocation of macroprudential policy.