This paper shows that finance has been a key ingredient of long-term economic growth in OECD and G20 countries over the past half-century, but that there can be too much finance. The evidence indicates that at current levels of household and business credit further expansion slows rather than...

The rapid growth after independence stopped in 2008 as the global crisis exposed important structural weaknesses. Large state involvement and rigid labour and product markets lowered productivity. Weak corporate governance and easy credit before the crisis led to high indebtedness and...

Excessive credit growth, poor risk assessment and lax lending standards in the run up to the 2008 global crisis led to unsustainable debt build-up in banks and related corporates. A weak framework for the governance of largely state-owned banks is likely to have contributed to the misallocation...

Malaysia has sustained over four decades of rapid, inclusive growth, reducing its dependence on agriculture and commodity exports to become a more diversified, modern and open economy. GDP per capita is now higher than in a number of OECD economies, while poverty and income inequality have...

Productivity growth is essential to providing sustainable increases in living standards. Malaysia has reached a development stage where growth needs to be driven more by productivity gains than the sheer accumulation of capital and labour inputs. The 11th Malaysia Plan (2016-20) sets an...

This paper surveys a broad range of studies and highlights the main findings of the empirical literature regarding business finance and productivity. Numerous studies analyse the productivity effects of financial development and frictions. The results suggest: 1) Financial development likely has...

Using a panel of OECD countries, this study assesses the linkages between structural policies and macroeconomic stability. Business cycle and time-series characteristics of GDP and its components are employed to define various measures for economic instability and for the persistence of adverse...

This paper reviews the state of the banking sector in Europe. At the aggregate level, the empirical data suggest that the Baltics, Cyprus, Greece and Ireland, in particular, are hit by a strong decline in lending in the wake of the financial crisis. This deleveraging is mainly caused by a...

Portugal’s export performance over the past decade has been impressive, helping to reduce external imbalances. This partly owed to a sequence of structural reforms that benefited the productivity of the export sector and led to an increase in its size. Nonetheless, exports as a share of GDP...

Aggregate investment has declined markedly over the crisis and has yet to recover. Reviving domestic and foreign investment is crucial to supporting the economic recovery, deepen Greece’s integration into global value chains and raising living standards. This will hinge primarily on improving...