We develop a parsimonious finance and endogenous growth model with microeconomic frictions in entrepreneurship and a role for credit constraints. We demonstrate that though an efficiency-growth relation will always exist, the efficiency-depth-growth relation may not. This has implications for...

This paper proposes a simple framework for understanding endogenous transaction costs - their composition, size and implications. In a model of diversification against risk, we distinguish between inverstments in instituations that facilitate exchange and the costs of conducting exchange itself....

This paper proposes a simple framework for understanding endogenous transaction costs - their composition, size and implications. In a model of diversification against risk, we distinguish between investments in institutions that facilitate exchange and the costs of conducting exchange itself....

Growth models which imply a scale effect are commonly refuted on the basis of empirical evidence. A focus on the extent of the market as opposed to the scale of the country has led recent studies to reconsider the role that country scale plays when conditioning on other factors. We consider a...

The quality of contracting institutions has been thought to be of second-order importance next to the impact that good property rights institutions can have on long-run growth. Using a large range of proxies for each type of institution, we find a robust negative link between the quality of...

That financial matters did not constrain industrial takeoff in the UK is generally accepted in the historical literature; in contrast, contemporary empirical analyses have found evidence that financial development can be a causal determinant of economic growth. We look to reconcile these findings...

The Uzawa (1961) theorem applied to finance and growthsuggests that a long-run positive correlation between financial efficiency and depth is only present when variations in the extent of access to financial services are considered. Improvements in financial efficiency can lead to new capital...