This paper introduces the updated and expanded version of the Financial Development and Structure Database and presents recent trends in structure and development of financial institutions and markets across countries. The authors add indicators on banking structure and financial globalization....

The first part of this paper reviews the literature on the relation between finance and growth. The second part of the paper reviews the literature on the historical and policy determinants of financial development. Governments play a central role in shaping the operation of financial systems...

This paper presents new and official survey information on bank regulations in 142 countries and makes comparisons with two earlier surveys. The data do not suggest that countries have primarily reformed their bank regulations for the better over the last decade. Following Basel guidelines many...

While institutional differences have been found to affect country growth patterns, much has remained unexplained, including how economic actors "overcome" institutional weaknesses and how internationalization helps or hinders development. Banking is an institutionally-intensive activity and the...

The authors seek to identify factors that influence decisions about a country's financial safety net, using a new dataset on 170 countries covering the 1960-2003 period. Specifically, they focus on how outside influences, economic development, crisis pressures, and political institutions affect...

There is a wide cross-country variation in the institutional structure of bank failure resolution, including the role of the deposit insurer. The authors use quantitative analysis for 57 countries and discuss specific country cases to illustrate this variation. Using data for over 1,700 banks...

By documenting the evolution of Tobin's q before, during, and after firms internationalize, the authors provide evidence on the bonding, segmentation, and market timing theories of internationalization. Using new data on 9,096 firms across 74 countries over the period 1989-2000, they find that...

Financial intermediation and financial services industries have undergone many changes in the past two decades due to deregulation, globalization, and technological advances. The framework for regulating finance has seen many changes as well, with approaches adapting to new issues arising in...

The authors examine whether financial development boosts the growth of small firms more than large firms and hence provides information on the mechanisms through which financial development fosters aggregate economic growth. They define an industry's technological firm size as the firm size...