The varieties of banking regulation in the EU: An empirical analysis

The EU strives to harmonize banking regulation, while its member states continue to insist on a degree of differentiation to accommodate national specifics. A new data set of national options and discretions (O&Ds) embedded in EU banking legislation facilitates systematic analysis of member states' policy preferences across multiple policy cycles. Its results suggest that states' O&D choices are related to their respective variety of banking capitalism. Coordinated and liberal market economies choose O&Ds to protect distinct subsets of regulatory parameters delaying full harmonization. Dependent market economies on the Eastern periphery use O&Ds to prevent the outflow of capital from foreign‐owned subsidiaries under their jurisdiction. These deep institutional roots suggest that many O&Ds will be carried over to the upcoming generation of EU banking legislation, despite the increased harmonization pressures in the banking union.