Information costs and regulatory barriers are the main distinguishing features of international financial markets as compared to national financial markets. This paper presents a simple model of the impact of these factors on banks' cross-border activities and provides empirical evidence. Our...

Voluntary certification systems potentially reduce search costs in markets with imperfect information. Service markets with many heterogeneous firms – such as the crafts market – are prone to information imperfections and can therefore potentially benefit from such informational mechanisms....