I study how complementarities between rival banks’ branching decisions impacts banking deregulation. I use an instrumental variables approach to separately identify a bank’s strategic response to rivals’ branching decisions from common market factors. The results indicate that some bank types are more likely to open additional branches if their rivals do. This has important implications for expansion and merger policies. These are explored using a model of consumer demand for bank services and bank branch network choices. I find that strategic complementarities in branching decisions augment the effects of a merger or expansion, leading many banking markets to become over‐branched.

中文翻译：

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银行分支机构决策中的战略互补

我研究了竞争对手银行分支机构决策之间的互补性如何影响银行放松管制。我使用工具变量方法来从共同的市场因素中分别确定银行对竞争对手的分支决策的战略反应。结果表明，某些银行类型的竞争对手更可能开设更多分支机构。这对扩张和合并政策具有重要意义。使用消费者对银行服务和银行分支网络选择的需求模型来探索这些问题。我发现分支机构决策中的战略互补会增加合并或扩张的影响，从而导致许多银行市场变得过度分支。