This paper empirically examines whether the effect of financial openness on private credit depends on the market structure of the banking sector prior liberalization. We find that financial openness has a positive effect on private credit in countries characterized by a highly competitive...

Consistent with recent theoretical models, this paper finds that financial openness has a positive effect on private credit in economies characterized by a competitive banking sector, but that this effect vanishes and even becomes negative in economies with imperfect banking competition.