Institutional and legal differences between countries increase entry costs and reduce the ability of banks to expand abroad. We use bilateral foreign banking data for 176 countries to estimate a gravity model in which bilateral cross-border banking activity is explained, in addition to standard...

The expansion of Spanish banks in Latin America is one of the most important elements of bank internationalisation in recent years. Spanish banks now head the ranking of foreign banks in the region. At first glance, it is paradoxical that at a time of notable progress in the process of European...