Recent contributions to the empirical analysis of the relationship between financial system development and economic growth found that an exogenous component of financial system development causes economic growth, is a good predictor of growth and that its growth impact is relatively large. In...

Competition is claimed to be beneficial in development projects promoting micro and small enterprise finance although there are still some doubts whether these loans can be developed into a profitable business. Actually nothing is known about how many MSE banking units optimally should be...

We put forward a modern version of the 'developmental' view of government-owned banks which shows that the combination of information asymmetries and weak institutions creates scope for such banks to play a growth-promoting role. We present new cross-country evidence consistent with our...

The purpose of this study is to identify whether an innovative company's likelihood of facing financial constraints is different when the company possesses a public procurement contract (PP). Theory suggests that the treatment effects of public procurement, particularly when mediated by the...

Informed capital is a crucial ingredient to a well-functioning market for start-up finance, especially in times of difficult market conditions. For bank-based systems, the question regarding which investors actually supply informed capital has not yet been answered. To fill this gap, we conduct...

Information asymmetries can severely limit cross-border border expansion of banks. When a bank enters a new market, it has incomplete information about potential new clients. Such asymmetries are reduced by credit registers, which distribute financial data on bank clients. We investigate the...

This RCT examines the effect of a new style finance training during which participants are given personalized feedback on their financial business outcomes in addition to a "rules-of-thumb" training approach. We compare this to the effects of a "rules-of-thumb" training by itself and to a...

About two billion people in the world do not own a financial account and there are many more who use financial services only occasionally. In the past, initiatives which address these problems of financial exclusion focused on the supply side of financial markets, in particular by increasing the...

Most microenterprises barely grow beyond subsistence level, as profitable investments are not realized due to barriers like credit, savings, and managerial constraints. Using panel data, this study identifies subgroups that would benefit by an intervention aiming to alleviate constraints. Two...

This article investigates the understandings and perceptions of (micro)insurance among low-income people in southern Ghana, using evidence from four focus group discussions. It analyzes how the focus group participants think about various types of insurance - among them a micro life insurance...