Economic Issues in the Regulation of Mutual Financial Firms: The Case of U.K. Building Societies

This paper addresses the issue of whether differences in corporate form necessitate differences in regulation. It focuses on the implications of differences in the ownership structure of deposit-taking mutual associations that compete with publicly quoted banks in intermediating funds. Many of the theoretical and empirical issues that arise here apply more generally to other financial markets where mutual institutions and stockholder firms operate side by side.