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Finance and the Sources of Growth

TL;DR: Beck, Levine, and Loayza as mentioned in this paper evaluate whether the level of development in the banking sector exerts a causal impact on economic growth and its sources- total factor productivity growth, physical capital accumulation, and private saving.
Abstract: Development of the banking sector exerts a large, causal impact on total factor productivity growth, which in turn causes GDP to grow. Whether banking development has a long-run effect on capital growth or private saving remains to be seen. Beck, Levine, and Loayza evaluate whether the level of development in the banking sector exerts a causal impact on economic growth and its sources- total factor productivity growth, physical capital accumulation, and private saving. They use (1) a pure cross-country instrumental variable estimator to extract the exogenous component of banking development and (2) a new panel technique that controls for country-specific effects and endogeneity. They find that: - Banks do exert a large, causal impact on total factor productivity growth, which feeds through to overall GDP growth. - The long-run links between banking development and both capital growth and private savings are more tenuous. This paper - a product of Finance, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to understand the links between the financial system and economic growth.
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the legal approach is a more fruitful way to understand corporate governance and its reform than the conventional distinction between bank-centered and market-centered financial systems, and discuss the possible origins of these differences, summarize their consequences, and assess potential strategies of corporate governance reform.

6,387 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: In this article, the authors evaluate whether the level of development of financial intermediaries exerts a casual influence on economic growth, and they find that financial intermediary development has a large causal impact on growth.
Abstract: Legal and accounting reform that strengthens creditor rights, contract enforcement, and accounting practices boosts financial development and accelerates economic growth. Levine, Loayza, and Beck evaluate: Whether the level of development of financial intermediaries exerts a casual influence on economic growth. Whether cross-country differences in legal and accounting systems (such as creditor rights, contract enforcement, and accounting standards) explain differences in the level of financial development. Using both traditional cross-section, instrumental-variable procedures and recent dynamic panel techniques, they find that development of financial intermediaries exerts a large causal impact on growth. The data also show that cross-country differences in legal and accounting systems help determine differences in financial development. Together, these findings suggest that legal and accounting reform that strengthens creditor rights, contract enforcement, and accounting practices boosts financial development and accelerates economic growth. This paper - a product of Macroeconomics and Growth, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to understand the links between the financial system and economic growth. Thorsten Beck may be contacted at tbeck@worldbank.org.

4,149 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate the effect of financial, legal, and corruption problems on firms' growth rates and find that it is consistently the smallest firms that are most constrained.
Abstract: Using a unique firm-level survey database covering 54 countries, we investigate the effect of financial, legal, and corruption problems on firms' growth rates. Whether these factors constrain growth depends on firm size. It is consistently the smallest firms that are most constrained. Financial and institutional development weakens the constraining effects of financial, legal, and corruption obstacles and it is again the small firms that benefit the most. There is only a weak relation between firms' perception of the quality of the courts in their country and firm growth. We also provide evidence that the corruption of bank officials constrains firm growth.

2,030 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: Beck, Demirguc-Kunt, and Levine as mentioned in this paper introduced a new database of indicators of financial development and structure across countries and over time, which unifies a range of indicators that measure the size, activity, and efficiency of financial intermediaries and markets.
Abstract: This new database of indicators of financial development and structure across countries and over time unites a range of indicators that measure the size, activity, and efficiency of financial intermediaries and markets. Beck, Demirguc-Kunt, and Levine introduce a new database of indicators of financial development and structure across countries and over time. This database is unique in that it unites a variety of indicators that measure the size, activity, and efficiency of financial intermediaries and markets. It improves on previous efforts by presenting data on the public share of commercial banks, by introducing indicators of the size and activity of nonbank financial institutions, and by presenting measures of the size of bond and primary equity markets. The compiled data permit the construction of financial structure indicators to measure whether, for example, a country's banks are larger, more active, and more efficient than its stock markets. These indicators can then be used to investigate the empirical link between the legal, regulatory, and policy environment and indicators of financial structure. They can also be used to analyze the implications of financial structure for economic growth. Beck, Demirguc-Kunt, and Levine describe the sources and construction of, and the intuition behind, different indicators and present descriptive statistics. This paper - a product of Finance, Development Research Group - is part of a broader effort in the group to understand the determinants of financial structure and its importance to economic development. The authors may be contacted at tbeck@worldbank.org, ademirguckunt@worldbank.org, or rlevine@csom.umn.edu.

1,879 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors use a well-developed dynamic panel GMM estimator to alleviate endogeneity concerns in two aspects of corporate governance research: the effect of board structure on firm performance and the determinants of board structures.
Abstract: We use a well-developed dynamic panel GMM estimator to alleviate endogeneity concerns in two aspects of corporate governance research: the effect of board structure on firm performance and the determinants of board structure. The estimator incorporates the dynamic nature of internal governance choices to provide valid and powerful instruments that address unobserved heterogeneity and simultaneity. We re-examine the relation between board structure and performance using the GMM estimator in a panel of 6,000 firms over a period from 1991-2003, and find no causal relation between board structure and current firm performance. We illustrate why other commonly used estimators that ignore the dynamic relationship between current governance and past firm performance may be biased. We discuss where it may be appropriate to consider the dynamic panel GMM estimator in corporate governance research, as well as caveats to its use.

1,723 citations


Cites background from "Finance and the Sources of Growth"

  • ...…Esquivel, and Lefort, 1996), estimation of a labor demand model (Blundell and Bond, 1998), the relation between financial intermediary development and economic growth (Beck, Levine, and Loayza, 2000), and the diversification discount (Hoechle, Schmid, Walter, and Yermack, 2012), among others....

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  • ...First, Beck et al. (2000) note that if the original model is conceptually in levels, differencing may reduce the power of our tests by reducing the variation in the explanatory variables....

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References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator optimally exploits all the linear moment restrictions that follow from the assumption of no serial correlation in the errors, in an equation which contains individual effects, lagged dependent variables and no strictly exogenous variables.
Abstract: This paper presents specification tests that are applicable after estimating a dynamic model from panel data by the generalized method of moments (GMM), and studies the practical performance of these procedures using both generated and real data. Our GMM estimator optimally exploits all the linear moment restrictions that follow from the assumption of no serial correlation in the errors, in an equation which contains individual effects, lagged dependent variables and no strictly exogenous variables. We propose a test of serial correlation based on the GMM residuals and compare this with Sargan tests of over-identifying restrictions and Hausman specification tests.

26,580 citations

Report SeriesDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, two alternative linear estimators that are designed to improve the properties of the standard first-differenced GMM estimator are presented. But both estimators require restrictions on the initial conditions process.

19,132 citations

Book
01 Jan 1934
TL;DR: Buku ini memberikan infmasi tentang aliran melingkar kehidupan ekonomi sebagaimana dikondisikan oleh keadaan tertentu, fenomena fundamental dari pembangunan EKonomi, kredit, laba wirausaha, bunga atas modal, and siklus bisnis as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Buku ini memberikan infmasi tentang aliran melingkar kehidupan ekonomi sebagaimana dikondisikan oleh keadaan tertentu, fenomena fundamental dari pembangunan ekonomi, kredit dan modal, laba wirausaha, bunga atas modal, dan siklus bisnis.

16,325 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a framework for efficient IV estimators of random effects models with information in levels which can accommodate predetermined variables is presented. But the authors do not consider models with predetermined variables that have constant correlation with the effects.

16,245 citations


"Finance and the Sources of Growth" refers background or methods in this paper

  • ...To exploit the time-series nature of the data, we create a panel data set and use recent dynamic panel techniques as proposed by Arellano and Bond (1991), Arellano and Bover (1995) and Blundell and Bond (1997)....

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  • ...Blundell and Bond (1997) show that this system estimator reduces the potential biases and imprecision associated with the difference estimator....

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  • ...Specifically, dynamic panel procedures typically take first differences of the observations in levels to eliminate country-specific effects [Arellano and Bond 1991; Holtz-Eakin, Newy, and Rosen 1990]....

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  • ...To address this and the endogeneity problem, Arellano and Bond propose using the lagged values of the levels of the variables as instruments....

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  • ...Dynamic panels: A GMM estimator20 Arellano and Bond (1991) propose to first-difference the regression equation to eliminate the country-specific effect. i t i t i t i t i t i t i t i ty y X X X X, , , , , , , ,' ( ) ' ( ) ( )− = − + − + −− − − − −1 11 21 2 12 1α β ε ε (10) This procedure solves the first econometric problem, as described above, but introduces a correlation between the new error term ε i,t - ε i,t-1 and the lagged dependent variable y i,t-1 – y i,t-2 if it is included in X1i,t-1 – X1i,t-2....

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Posted Content
TL;DR: This paper examined legal rules covering protection of corporate shareholders and creditors, the origin of these rules, and the quality of their enforcement in 49 countries and found that common law countries generally have the best, and French civil law countries the worst, legal protections of investors.
Abstract: This paper examines legal rules covering protection of corporate shareholders and creditors, the origin of these rules, and the quality of their enforcement in 49 countries. The results show that common law countries generally have the best, and French civil law countries the worst, legal protections of investors, with German and Scandinavian civil law countries located in the middle. We also find that concentration of ownership of shares in the largest public companies is negatively related to investor protections, consistent with the hypothesis that small, diversified shareholders are unlikely to be important in countries that fail to protect their rights.

14,563 citations