Cultural Affinity, Regulation, and Market Structure: Evidence from the Canadian Retail Banking Industry
通过估计一个完全信息静态进入博弈模型，研究了文化进入壁垒对加拿大零售银行业进入和竞争的影响，发现文化亲和力解释了金融机构的竞争优势，并限制了旨在促进竞争的监管政策的有效性。
We estimate a perfect information static entry game to study the effect of cultural entry barriers on entry and competition in the retail banking industry. Canada provides a favorable setting for analysis due to its high linguistic diversity, concentrated market, and regulatory entry barriers. We find that cultural affinity between customers and financial institutions that share a common cultural origin plays an important role in explaining the comparative advantages of these institutions in certain markets. Using several counterfactual experiments and additional empirical evidence, we show that the effectiveness of regulations intended to foster competition is significantly limited by cultural barriers, which is a key determinant that shapes the competitive landscape of the industry.