Contents: Part I Theory and evidence on finance and growth -- 1. Financial development and innovation-led growth / Phillippe Aghion, Peter Howitt and Ross Levine -- 2. Financial structure, economic growth and development / Franklin Allen, Xian Gu and Oskar Kowalewski -- 3. Evidence on finance...

Economists have long maintained that a well-developed and functioning financial system is a vital prerequisite to economic growth. Countries with robust banking sectors and securities markets-that is, countries in which credit cards, loans, mortgages, and the ability to issue stocks and bonds...

"Policymakers and economists disagree about the impact of bank regulations on the distribution of income. Exploiting cross-state and cross-time variation, we test whether liberalizing restrictions on intra-state branching in the United States intensified, ameliorated, or had no effect on income...

April 2000 - Empirical results highlight the downside of imposing certain regulatory restrictions on commercial bank activities. Regulations that restrict banks' ability to engage in securities activities and to own nonfinancial firms are closely associated with more instability in the banking...