Regulatory Arbitrage and Presence of Foreign Banks: Evidence from the Indian Banking Sector

Abstract

Presence of a heterogeneous banking system across countries provides opportunities for cross-border banks to indulge in activities of regulatory arbitrage. This article attempts to investigate whether regulatory arbitrage induces the presence of foreign banks in India. Using relevant country-level data on various aspects of banking regulations, we conduct a series of panel regressions to examine the effect of cross-country gap in banking regulations on foreign banks’ presence in India. We find regulatory arbitrage as significantly determining foreign banks’ presence in India, after controlling for other factors (income level of home country, bilateral economic relationship, colonial and linguistic commonality, and geographic proximity).