The paper uses the dynamic GMM Model to examine the finance-growth nexus with panel data (1981-2010) from 24 African countries. Evidence suggests that there is a positive relationship between finance and economic growth and that there is a bi-directional causal relationship between finance and...

The paper employs cointegration, Fully-Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS), error correction and the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) techniques to investigate the relationship between economic growth and financial development using annual time series data (1971-2010) from Ghana. Three...

This paper addresses the notion of an optimum level of financial activity that is contingent on a country's general level of development. Referring to threshold regressions and a bootstrap test for structural shift of the finance regressor in a growth equation, it is shown that countries gain...

We integrate systemic financial instability in an empirical macroeconomic model for the euro area. We find that at times of widespread financial instability the macroeconomy functions fundamentally differently from tranquil times. We employ a richly specified Markov-Switching...

This paper addresses the notion of an "optimum level of financial activity" that is contingent on a country's general level of development. Referring to threshold regressions and a bootstrap test for structural shift of the finance regressor in a growth equation, it is shown that countries gain...

I use micro data to quantify key features of U.S. firm financing. In particular, I establish that a substantial 35% of firms' investment is funded using financial markets. I then construct a dynamic equilibrium model that matches these features and fit the model to business cycle data using...