In much of the developing world, many farmers grow crops for local or personal consumption despite export options that appear to be more profitable. Thus many conjecture that one or several markets are missing. This paper reports on a randomized controlled trial conducted by DrumNetin Kenya that...

Development economics in its early years created the image of a fierce fight between advocates of contrasting theories or approaches-"balanced growth"vs."unbalanced growth"or"program loans"vs."project loans."This view has the merit to highlight such conflicts in great detail; yet it fails to...

This paper examines the evolving importance of banks and securities markets during the process of economic development. As economies develop, they increase their demand for the services provided by securities markets relative to those provided by banks, such that securities markets become...

This paper analyzes the bright and dark sides of the financial development process through the lenses of the four fundamental frictions to which agents are exposed -- information asymmetry, enforcement, collective action, and collective cognition. Financial development is shaped by the efforts...

Although there has been research looking at the relationship between the structure of the financial system and economic growth, much less work has dealt with the importance of bank-based versus market-based financial systems for poverty and income distribution. Empirical evidence has indicated...

A bank's interest expenses rise with its degree of internationalization, measured by its share of foreign liabilities in total liabilities or a Herfindahl index of international liability concentration, especially if the bank is performing badly. The results in this paper suggest that an...

This paper combines firm-level data from 89 countries with updated country-level data on financial structure, and uses two estimation approaches. It finds that in low-income countries, labor growth is swifter in countries with a higher level of private credit/gross domestic product; the positive...

This paper finds that lending by state banks is less procyclical than lending by private banks, especially in countries with good governance. Lending by state banks in high-income countries is even countercyclical. On the liability side, state banks expand potentially unstable non-deposit...

This paper examines the factors that determine banking flows from advanced economies to emerging markets. In addition to the usual determinants of capital flows in terms of global push and local pull factors, it examines the role of bilateral factors, such as growth differentials and economic...

Using a multi-country panel of banks, the authors study whether better capitalized banks fared better in terms of stock returns during the financial crisis. They differentiate among various types of capital ratios: the Basel risk-adjusted ratio; the leverage ratio; the Tier I and Tier II ratios;...