Industry and financial profiles of MENA firms may underpin the observation that MENA country exports are below potential and skewed toward low value-added goods that are unable to spur rapid job creation and inclusive growth. To assess this link, the paper combines analysis highlighting external...

This paper studies whether there is a connection between finance and growth at the firm level. It employs a new dataset of 150,165 equity and bond issuances around the world, matched with income and balance sheet data for 62,653 listed firms in 65 countries over 1990-2016. Three main patterns...