Bank regulation and supervision in 180 countries from 1999 to 2011

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss and provide new data and measures of bank regulatory and supervisory policies in 180 countries from 1999 to 2011. Design/methodology/approach The authors' approach is based upon the quantification of hundreds of questions, including information on permissible bank activities, capital requirements, the powers of official supervisory agencies, information disclosure requirements, external governance mechanisms, deposit insurance, barriers to entry, and loan provisioning, to form indices of key bank regulatory and supervisory policies. Findings It is found that the regulation and supervision of banks varies widely across countries in many different dimensions.…