We attempt to identify and explain the broad patterns of financial development in developed countries over the twentieth century. We find that, contrary to the predictions of most existing theories, indicators of financial development do not seem monotonic over time. In particular, we find that...

Theories based on incomplete contracting suggest that small organizations may do better than large organizations in activities that require the processing of soft information. We explore this idea in the context of bank lending to small firms, an activity that is typically thought of as relying...

Cross-country regressions suggest little connection from foreign capital inflows to more rapid economic growth for developing countries and emerging markets. This suggests that the lack of domestic savings is not the primary constraint on growth in these economies, as implicitly assumed in the...

We examine the effects of aid on growth--in cross-sectional and panel data--after correcting for the bias that aid typically goes to poorer countries, or to countries after poor performance. Even after thiscorrection, we find little robust evidence of a positive (or negative) relationship...

We explore the connection between money, banks, and aggregate credit. We start with a simple real' model without money, where banks make loans repayable in goods and depositors hold claims on the bank payable on demand in goods. Aggregate production may be delayed in the economy. If so, we show...

Economists have argued that a high concentration of land holdings in a country can create powerful interest groups that retard the creation of economic institutions, and thus hold back economic development. Could these arguments apply beyond underdeveloped countries with backward political...

India seems to have followed an idiosyncratic pattern of development, certainly compared to other fast-growing Asian economies. While the emphasis on services rather than manufacturing has been widely noted, within manufacturing India has emphasized skill-intensive rather than labor-intensive...

According to some observers, the commercial bank-an institution that conducts the twin activities of accepting deposits payable on demand and originating loans-has outlived its usefulness and is in a state of terminal decline. The broad statistical evidence for this contention, however, is...

We show in this article that bank failures can be contagious. Unlike earlier work where contagion stems from depositor panics or contractual links between banks, we argue that bank failures can shrink the common pool of liquidity, creating, or exacerbating aggregate liquidity shortages. This...

Transactions take place in the firm rather than in the market because the firm offers power to agents who make specific investments. Past literature emphasizes the allocation of ownership as the primary mechanism by which the firm does this. Within the contractibility assumptions of this...