IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this article

Competition in the Financial Sector: Overview of Competition Policies

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Stijn Claessens

Abstract

Competition in the financial sector, as in other sectors, matters for allocative, productive, and dynamic efficiency. Theory suggests, however, that unfettered competition is not necessarily best given the special features of financial services. The author discusses these analytical complications before reviewing how to assess competition in the financial sector and its determinants. It is shown that competitiveness varies greatly across countries, in perhaps surprising ways, and that it is not driven by financial system concentration. Rather, systems with greater foreign entry and fewer entry and activity restrictions tend to be more competitive, confirming that contestability--the lack of barriers to entry and exit--determines effective competition. The author then analyzes how competition policy in the financial sector has generally been conducted and how changes in competition in the financial services industries should affect competition policy going forward. In part based on comparison with other industries, the author provides some suggestions on how competition policy in the financial sector could be better approached as well as what institutional arrangements best fit a modern view of competition policy in the sector. The specific competition challenges for developing countries is also highlighted. The author concludes that practices today fall far short of the need for better competition policy in the financial sector. Copyright The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / the world bank . All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org, Oxford University Press.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/wbro/lkp004
Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

Article provided by World Bank Group in its journal The World Bank Research Observer.

Volume (Year): 24 (2009)
Issue (Month): 1 (April)
Pages: 83-118

as
in new window

Handle: RePEc:oup:wbrobs:v:24:y:2009:i:1:p:83-118
Contact details of provider: Postal:
Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK

Phone: (202) 477-1234
Fax: 01865 267 985
Web page: http://wbro.oxfordjournals.org/
Email:


More information through EDIRC

Order Information: Web: http://www.oup.co.uk/journals

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as
in new window


  1. Bekaert, Geert & Harvey, Campbell R., 2003. "Emerging markets finance," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 10(1-2), pages 3-56, February.
  2. Laeven, Luc & Levine, Ross, 2007. "Is there a diversification discount in financial conglomerates?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 331-367, August.
  3. Hempell, Hannah S., 2002. "Testing for Competition Among German Banks," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2002,04, Deutsche Bundesbank, Research Centre.
  4. Perotti, Enrico C. & Suarez, Javier, 2002. "Last bank standing: What do I gain if you fail?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(9), pages 1599-1622, October.
  5. Sengupta, Rajdeep, 2007. "Foreign entry and bank competition," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 502-528, May.
  6. Elena Carletti & Philipp Hartmann, 2003. "Competition and stability: what's special about banking?," Chapters,in: Monetary History, Exchange Rates and Financial Markets, chapter 8 Edward Elgar Publishing.
  7. International Monetary Fund, 2005. "Competition in Indian Banking," IMF Working Papers 05/141, International Monetary Fund.
  8. Degryse, Hans & Masschelein, Nancy & Mitchell, Janet, 2005. "SMEs and Bank Lending Relationships: The Impact of Mergers," CEPR Discussion Papers 5061, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  9. Enrica Detragiache & Thierry Tressel & Poonam Gupta, 2008. "Foreign Banks in Poor Countries: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(5), pages 2123-2160, October.
  10. Peter Blair Henry, 2007. "Capital Account Liberalization: Theory, Evidence, and Speculation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(4), pages 887-935, December.
  11. Arnoud W. A. Boot & Anjan V. Thakor, 2000. "Can Relationship Banking Survive Competition?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 679-713, 04.
  12. Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Laeven, Luc & Levine, Ross, 2004. "Regulations, Market Structure, Institutions, and the Cost of Financial Intermediation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 36(3), pages 593-622, June.
  13. Bekaert, Geert & Harvey, Campbell R. & Lundblad, Christian, 2005. "Does financial liberalization spur growth?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 3-55, July.
  14. Berger, Allen N. & Miller, Nathan H. & Petersen, Mitchell A. & Rajan, Raghuram G. & Stein, Jeremy C., 2005. "Does function follow organizational form? Evidence from the lending practices of large and small banks," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 237-269, May.
  15. Mitchell A. Petersen & Raghuram G. Rajan, 1995. "The Effect of Credit Market Competition on Lending Relationships," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 110(2), pages 407-443.
  16. Stijn Claessens & Luc Laeven, 2005. "Financial Dependence, Banking Sector Competition, and Economic Growth," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(1), pages 179-207, 03.
  17. Giovanni Dell’Ariccia & Deniz Igan & Luc Laeven, 2012. "Credit Booms and Lending Standards: Evidence from the Subprime Mortgage Market," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44, pages 367-384, 03.
  18. Allen, Franklin & Gale, Douglas, 2004. "Competition and Financial Stability," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 36(3), pages 453-480, June.
  19. Allen N. Berger, 2006. "Why is Foreign Bank Penetration So Low in Developed Nations?," World Scientific Book Chapters,in: Cross-Border Banking Regulatory Challenges, chapter 10, pages 125-150 World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
  20. Atif Mian, 2006. "Distance Constraints: The Limits of Foreign Lending in Poor Economies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(3), pages 1465-1505, 06.
  21. Martin Cihak & Klaus Schaeck, 2007. "Banking Competition and Capital Ratios," IMF Working Papers 07/216, International Monetary Fund.
  22. Beck, Thorsten & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Levine, Ross, 2006. "Bank concentration, competition, and crises: First results," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 1581-1603, May.
  23. Xavier Vives, 2001. "Competition in the Changing World of Banking," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 17(4), pages 535-547.
  24. Jason Karceski & Steven Ongena & David C. Smith, 2005. "The Impact of Bank Consolidation on Commercial Borrower Welfare," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(4), pages 2043-2082, 08.
  25. Dell'Ariccia, Giovanni & Marquez, Robert, 2004. "Information and bank credit allocation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 185-214, April.
  26. Claessens, Stijn & Demirguc-Kunt, Asl[iota] & Huizinga, Harry, 2001. "How does foreign entry affect domestic banking markets?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 891-911, May.
  27. Boot, Arnoud W. A., 2000. "Relationship Banking: What Do We Know?," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 7-25, January.
  28. Petersen, Mitchell A & Rajan, Raghuram G, 1994. " The Benefits of Lending Relationships: Evidence from Small Business Data," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(1), pages 3-37, March.
  29. Rajan, Raghuram G, 1992. " Insiders and Outsiders: The Choice between Informed and Arm's-Length Debt," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1367-1400, September.
  30. Paola Sapienza, 2002. "The Effects of Banking Mergers on Loan Contracts," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(1), pages 329-367, 02.
  31. Robert Marquez, 2002. "Competition, Adverse Selection, and Information Dispersion in the Banking Industry," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(3), pages 901-926.
  32. Robert S. Pindyck, 2007. "Governance, Issuance Restrictions, And Competition In Payment Card Networks," NBER Working Papers 13218, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

as
in new window


Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:wbrobs:v:24:y:2009:i:1:p:83-118. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Oxford University Press)

or (Christopher F. Baum)

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.