While substantial research finds that financial development boosts overall economic growth, the authors study whether financial development is pro-poor: Does financial development disproportionately raise the income of the poor? Using a broad cross-country sample, the authors find that the...

Survey data from 120 developing countries are used to examine the relation between establishment size and age in the formal sector. Existing research suggests that manufacturing establishments in developing countries do not grow over time, most likely because of market imperfections and...

This paper studies the cross-country patterns of risky innovation and growth through the lens of international trade. It uses a simple theoretical framework of risky quality upgrading by firms under varying levels of financial development to derive two predictions. First, the mean rate of...

This paper uses the construction of India's Golden Quadrangle central highway network, together with comprehensive loan data from the Reserve Bank of India, to investigate the interaction between infrastructure development and financial sector depth. The paper identifies a disproportionate...

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...

This paper studies the relation between institutional investors and capital market development by analyzing unique data on monthly asset-level portfolio allocations of Chilean pension funds between 1995 and 2005. The results depict pension funds as large and important institutional investors...

An influential body of theoretical research and an emerging line of empirical work suggest that the operation of the formal financial system affects the degree to which economic opportunities are defined by talent and initiative rather than by parental wealth and social connections. This paper...

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 reviews different econometric methodologies to assess the relationship between financial development and growth. It illustrates the identification problem, which is at the center of the finance and growth literature, using the example of a simple Ordinary Least Squares estimation. It...