Today there are many questions about the nature and the future of the so-called 'new economy'. The term 'new economy' itself has acquired a variety of quite different connotations. For many commentators, it continues to refer primarily to the altered macroeconomic performance of the US economy...

This paper discusses the different functions that capital markets and banks have in economic development, and it reviews the debate about marketbased vs. bank-based financial systems. Using data for a sample of 40 countries over the period 1975-98, the paper then shows that variation in both...