Using cross-country and panel regressions, the authors show that financial sector development significantly reduces undernourishment (hunger), largely through gaining farmers and others access to productivity-enhancing equipment, translating into beneficial income and general effects. They show...

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...

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 relationships among competition in the financial sector, access of firms to external financing, and associated economic growth are ambiguous in theory. Moreover, measuring competition in the financial sector can be complex. In this paper the authors first estimate for 16 countries a measure...

The authors study the determinants of the growing migration of stock market activity to international financial centers. They use a sample of 77 countries and document that higher economic growth and more macroeconomic stability help stock market development. Countries with higher income per...

The recent literature on law and finance has drawn attention to the importance of creditor rights in influencing the development of financial systems and in affecting firm corporate governance and financing patterns. Recent financial crises have also highlighted the importance of insolvency...