City Research Online

Abstract

We show that politicians facing a binding term limit are more likely to engage in financial de-liberalization than those facing re-election, but only in the wake of a financial crisis. In particular, they implement policies that tend to favor incumbent financial institutions over the general population, such as increasing barriers to entry in the banking sector. We propose a conceptual framework and several mechanisms to rationalize this behavior and show that revolving doors between the government and the financial sector play a key role in encouraging bank-friendly policies after crises.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	©2026 The Author(s). International Economic Review published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The Economics Department of the University of Pennsylvania and the Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Publisher Keywords:	Financial crises; political accountability; democracies; term limits; special-interest groups
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions H Social Sciences > HG Finance H Social Sciences > HJ Public Finance J Political Science > JA Political science (General)
Departments:	School of Policy & Global Affairs School of Policy & Global Affairs > Department of Economics
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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