We analyze the desirability of level playing fields in international financial regulation. In general, level playing fields impose the standards of the weakest regulator upon the best-regulated economies. However, they may be desirable when capital is mobile because they counter a cherry-picking effect that lowers the size and efficiency of banks in weaker economies. Hence, while a laissez faire policy favors the better-regulated economy, level playing fields are good for weaker regulators. We show that multinational banking mitigates the cherry-picking effect, and reduces the damage that a level playing field causes in the better-regulated economy.

This paper presents the first model where entry deterrence takes place through financial rather than product‐market channels. In existing models, a firm's choice of financial instruments deters entry by affecting product market behavior; here entry deterrence occurs by affecting the credit market behavior of investors towards entrant firms. We find that to deter entry, the claims held on incumbent firms should be sufficiently risky, that is, equity . This contrasts with the standard Brander and Lewis (1986) result that debt deters entry. This effect is more marked the less competitive the credit market is—so more credit market competition spurs more product market competition .

We analyze the desirability of level playing fields in international financial regulation. In general, level playing fields impose the standards of the weakest regulator upon the best‐regulated economies. However, they may be desirable when capital is mobile because they counter a cherry‐picking effect that lowers the size and efficiency of banks in weaker economies. Hence, while a laissez faire policy favors the better‐regulated economy, level playing fields are good for weaker regulators. We show that multinational banking mitigates the cherry‐picking effect, and reduces the damage that a level playing field causes in the better‐regulated economy.

Real‐world contracts are typically private, observed only by their direct signatories, so agents working together are vulnerable to the principal opportunistically reducing other agents' incentives. The principal can mitigate this commitment problem by giving the most skilled agent a budget and delegating authority to write other agents' contracts. This endogenous hierarchy, never optimal with public contracts, raises effort, output, and compensation but allows rent extraction. The principal prefers it when contracts are opaque enough, skill is sufficiently heterogeneous across agents, and joint output is sensitive enough to effort. Our model provides novel predictions for the structure of banking syndicates.