Financial development and growth: are the APEC nations unique?

This paper examines panel evidence concerning the role of financial development in economic growth. I decompose the well-documented relationship between financial development and growth to examine whether financial development affects growth solely through its contribution to growth in factor accumulation rates, or whether it also has a positive impact on total factor productivity, in the manner of Benhabib and Spiegel (2000). I also examine whether the growth performances of a subsample of APEC countries are uniquely sensitive to levels of financial development. The results suggest that indicators of financial development are correlated with both total factor productivity growth and investment. However, many of the results are sensitive to the inclusion of country fixed effects, which may indicate that the financial development indicators are proxying for broader country characteristics. Finally, the APEC subsample countries appear to be more sensitive to financial development, both in the determinations of subsequent total factor productivity growth and in rates of factor accumulation, particularly accumulation of physical capital.