Did policy interventions contribute to the gradual segmentation of lending markets starting with the 2007 - 2008 global financial crisis? We investigate this question in an international Cournot duopoly model under an equity constraint. Two symmetric multinational banks compete for corporate...

Stylized data shows a structural break in the integration of lending markets which coincides with the global financial crisis. During and after the crisis, banks actively reduced their share of foreign relative to domestic banking activity and lending in particular. This increase in lending...