We propose a theory in which capital market imperfections are at the origin of cross-country TFP differences. In our theory entrepreneurs have private information about the multifactor productivity of their technology. We study how the contracting environment, as described by the ability to...

In an overlapping generations economy households (lenders) fund risky investment projects of firms (borrowers) by drawing up loan contracts on the basis of asymmetric information. An optimal contract entails either the issue of only debt or the issue of both debt and equity according to whether...

We present a survey of the finance-growth nexus that raises a number of qualifications to the mainstream interpretation. Doubts regarding empirical consensus are investigated and we consider the prevalence of cross-section econometrics as dominant in shaping the present theoretical consensus. To...

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...

Even before the financial crisis of 2007/08, there were significant questions about Europe's long-term growth prospects. After a long period of catching up with US levels of labour productivity, euro area productivity growth had, from the mid-1990s onwards, fallen significantly behind. Using...

How does finance affect employment and inter-industry job reallocation? We present a model that predicts that financial development (i) increases employment and/or labor productivity and wages, with a smaller impact at high levels of the equilibrium wage and financial development; (ii) may...

This paper analyzes the relationship between financial repression and structural change. We present a simple theoretical model of structural transformation in which the impact of financial repression on unbalanced growth is studied. Governments may choose to repress the financial sector to allow...

As soon as international financial markets felt reassured in 2003 by the surprisingly neoliberal orientation of President Lula’s government, the ‘spot-the-new-Latin-tiger’ financial brigade became dazzled by Brazil — they just couldn’t have enough of it. So much so, that they had...