U.S.-Mexico Money-Laundering Rules Cost Billions, Study Finds

U.S. regulations aimed at money laundering may be doing more harm to the economy than they are to drug traffickers, according to a new study.

Regulations and enforcement actions have largely severed so-called correspondent-banking lines between Mexico and the U.S., according to the study, issued Thursday by the Texas Association of Business and the National Bankers Association, a group representing minority-owned banks. As a result, the U.S. has lost out on billions in direct investment, economic output and exports, said Robert Shapiro, an adviser and former economic official in the Clinton administration who wrote the report.

“The regulation ...