"This paper contributes to the literature on how a country's legal origin influences the operation of its financial system by using firm-level survey data on the obstacles that firms face in raising external finance. The paper assesses two channels through which legal origin may influence the...

Analysis of a panel data set for 1976-98 shows that on balance stock markets and banks positively influence economic growth; findings that do not result from biases induced by simultaneity, omitted variables, or unobserved country-specific effects

A country's legal origin—whether British, French, German, or Scandinavian—helps explain the development of its financial institutions today. Legal systems differ in their ability to facilitate private exchanges and to adapt to support new financial and commercial transactions. A country...

July 1999 - This new database of indicators of financial development and structure across countries and over time unites a range of indicators that measure the size, activity, and efficiency of financial intermediaries and markets. Beck, Demirgüç-Kunt, and Levine introduce a new database of...