The authors find no evidence for the superiority of either market-based or bank-based financial systems for industries dependent on external financing. But they find overwhelming evidence that industries heavily dependent on external finance grow faster in economies with higher levels of...

The authors explore the relationship between financial structure - the degree to which a financial system is market- or bank-based - and economicdevelopment. They use three methodologies: 1) The cross-country approach uses cross-country data to assess whether economies grow faster with market-...

Access to financial services, or rather the lack thereof, is often indiscriminately decried as a problem in many developing countries. The authors argue that the"problem of access"should rather be analyzed by identifying different demand and supply constraints. They use the concept of an access...

Does financial development translate into a comparative advantage in industries that use more external finance? The author uses industry-level data on firms'dependence on external finance for 36 industries and 56 countries to examine this question. The author shows that countries with...

The authors evaluate whether the level of development in the banking sector exerts a causal impact on economic growth and its sources-total factor productivity growth, physical capital accumulation, and private saving. They use (1) a pure cross-country instrumental variable estimator to extract...

The author explores a possible link between financial development and trade in manufactures. His theoretical model focuses on the role of financial intermediaries in facilitating large-scale, high-return projects. Results show that economies with better developed financial sectors have a...

Although by regional standards, Kenya's financial system is relatively well developed and diversified, major structural impediments prevent it from reaching its full potential. Crosscountry comparisons, however, show the importance of a well-developed financial sector for long-term economic...

The authors assess the effect of privatization on performance in a panel of Nigerian banks for the period 1990-2001. They find evidence of performance improvement in nine banks that were privatized, which is remarkable given the inhospitable environment for true financial intermediation. Their...

The authors investigate how a country's financial institutions and the quality of its legal system explain the size attained by its largest industrial firms in a sample of 44 countries. Firm size is positively related to the size of the banking system and the efficiency of the legal system....

Theory makes ambiguous predictions about the effects of bank concentration on access to external finance. Using a unique data base for 74 countries offinancing obstacles and financing patterns for firms of small, medium, and large size, the authors assess the effects of banking market structure...