"This essay shows that government credit-allocation schemes generate incentive conflicts that undermine the quality of bank supervision and eventually produce banking crisis. For political reasons, most countries establish a regulatory culture that embraces three economically contradictory...

Banks are in the business of taking calculated risks. Expanding the geographic footprint of an organization's profit-making activities changes the geographic pattern of its exposure to loss in ways that are hard for regulators and supervisors to observe. This paper tests and confirms the...

This essay shows that government credit-allocation schemes generate incentive conflicts that undermine the quality of bank supervision and eventually produce banking crisis. For political reasons, most countries establish a regulatory culture that embraces three economically contradictory...