Risk-based capital standards presume a need for common capital standards across countries. The details of forging an agreement were left to the staffs of the primary bank regulators in each country, and compromises were inevitable. Although domestic constituencies' reactions to the proposals were invited, the arduous negotiations that led to the proposals generated intense pressure on the principals not to make changes. The European Community's approach to financial integration seems to be driven by a political desire to achieve an integrated market within Europe, despite significant...

Historians of our financial system will record this as an age of deregulation and bank mergers. Deregulation, a cornerstone of President Reagan's Administration, resulted in federal and state legislation that contributed to increased competition for financial services and increased merger activity. During the 1981-1986 period, there were 2,139 mergers in banking and finance, accounting for 16 percent of total merger activity.l More mergers occurred in banking and finance than in any other industry. Because of these bank mergers, there are vast amounts of data avail able for scholarly...

In Chapter 5, William Shughart also considers the part that politics played in banking legislation during the 1930s, but he looks at the banking legislation passed in the United States. Shughart draws par ticular attention to the provisions in the Banking Act of 1933 that required the separation of commercial and investment banking activ ities. Applying a public choice analysis, Shughart asks who gained from the provisions, and he concludes that the commercial banking industry, the investment banking industry, and the U. S. Treasury Department can all be said to have benefited in the years...