"The authors (1) present new indicators of banking sector penetration across 99 countries based on a survey of bank … regulatory authorities, (2) show that these indicators predict household and firm use of banking services, (3) explore the … countries, and (4) relate these banking outreach indicators to measures of firms' financing constraints. In particular, they …

Claessens and Laeven first estimate for 16 countries a measure of banking system competition based on industrial organization …' banking systems allows financially dependent industries to grow faster. These results are robust under a variety of tests. The … in banking"--World Bank web site …