This paper reviews and appraises the body of empirical research on the association between .nancial markets and economic growth that has accumulated over the past quarter-century. The bulk of the historical evidence suggests that financial development a¤ects economic growth in a positive,...

We study how monetary policy affects local market competition in a union of countries experiencing different economic conditions: the euro area. We find that when monetary conditions tighten (loosen), from the point of view of an individual economy, market concentration increases (declines)....

We propose a heteroscedastic regression model to identify the determinants of the dispersion in interest rates on loans granted to small and medium sized enterprises. We interpret unexplained deviations as evidence of the banks' discretionary use of market power in the loan rate setting process....