Weather risk and incomplete insurance markets are significant contributors to poverty for rural households in developing countries. Weather index insurance has emerged as a possible tool for overcoming these challenges. This paper provides evidence on the impact of weather index insurance from a...

The relationship between bank competition, firm access to finance, and economic growth is a much debated topic in the economic literature and in policy circles. This paper uses a panel of 23 manufacturing sectors over 2002-10 to investigate the impact of bank competition on industry growth in...

The authors show that exported products exit the US market sooner if they violate the Heckscher-Ohlin notion of comparative advantage. Crucially, this pattern is stronger when exporting country has a well-developed banking system, measured by a high ratio of bank credit over the GDP. Banks thus...

Combining two unique data sets, this paper explores the relationship between the relative importance of different financial institutions and their average size and firms' access to financial services. Specifically, the authors explore the relationship between the share in total financial assets...

Countries with more developed financial sectors, experience fewer fluctuations in real per capita output, consumption, and investment growth. But the manner in which the financial sector develops matters. The relative importance of banks in the financial system is important in explaining...

The paper provides evidence on the number and volume of financial transactions undertaken by agents (local businesses that double as more convenient, lower cost alternatives to formal branches) of the largest microfinance institution operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo. More important...

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....

This paper critically reviews the literature on finance and inequality, highlighting substantive gaps in the literature. Finance plays a crucial role in most theories of persistent inequality. Unsurprisingly, therefore, economic theory provides a rich set of predictions concerning both the...

Does an unregulated financial system absorb too many productive inputs? This paper studies this question in the context of a dynamic model with heterogeneous producers. In the absence of a financial system, the only way to purchase inputs is using internal funds. Producers are subject to...

This paper proposes a measure of the extent to which a financial sector is connected to the real economy. The Measure of Connectedness is a measure of the composition of assets, namely the share of credit to the non-financial sectors over the total credit market instruments. The aggregate...