Market Forces or International Institutions? The Under-Emphasized Role of IFIs in Domestic Bank Regulatory Adoption Meredith Wilf∗ January 10, 2017 For discussion at The Political Economy of International Organizations (PEIO) 2017 conference January 12-14, 2017 Abstract The 1988 Basel Capital Accord coordinated an increase in twelve signatory countries’ bank regulatory stringency. By 2001, in the absence of legal obligation to do so, more than 100 non-signatories also adopted the accord’s terms. Why? While existing explanations argue that countries adopted to prevent a reputation as weakly regulated, this is inconsistent with limited public information about adoption status. I argue instead that international organizations played a systematic role in broad adoption. Using an original dataset that codes Basel I status for 167 countries over the period 1988 to 2015, I analyze those factors that correlate with country adoption of Basel I. I find that International Monetary Fund (IMF) programs are robustly correlated and market forces hold little explanatory power. Further, IMF program effects are strongest immediately following 1997, the year that Basel I was embedded in new international best practices that entailed pub- lic reporting by the IMF. For an important bank regulation where adoption can be meaningfully compared across countries, this paper shows that the conventional understanding overstates the role of market forces and understates the role of international organizations. Further, this case illustrates how, even without a strong hegemonic preference for worldwide adoption, international agreements may evolve in unintended ways. ∗Meredith Wilf (
[email protected]) is Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA) at University of Pittsburgh (
[email protected]).