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...

Reforms to improve both the level and the efficiency of financial inter-mediation in Brazil should be high on Brazilian policymakers'agendas, because of the financial sector's importance to economic growth. This means that Brazil must also improve the legal and regulatory environment in which...

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....

Using a firm-level survey database covering 48 countries, the authors investigate whether differences in financial and legal development affect the way firms finance their investments. The results indicate that external financing of investments is not a function of institutions, although the...

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 study the impact of bank concentration, regulations, and national institutions on the likelihood of suffering a systemic banking crisis. Using data on 79 countries over the period 1980-97, they find that crises are less likely (1) in more concentrated banking systems, (2) in...

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...

Across the world, supply for financial services rarely matches the demand, given multiple market frictions. This paper discusses the concept of the financial possibilities frontier as a constrained optimum to categorize different problems of shallow financial markets or unsustainable expansion....