We show that the many unusual features of China's financial markets are consistent with a government choosing regulations to maximize a standard type of social welfare function. Under certain conditions, these regulations are equivalent to imposing explicit taxes on business and interest income,...

We develop a model of dealer-intermediated over-the-counter (OTC) markets in which customers choose their relationship dealers and dealers choose their levels of expertise, thereby determining the market structure and price informativeness jointly. We find that, in general, multiple equilibria...