Foreign direct investment and economic growth: Is more financial development better?

We investigate the extent to which an increase in financial development affects the positive effect of foreign direct investment on economic growth. Although the financial sector is beneficial for economic growth, the effect of further financial development on growth is found to become insignificant. Using a dynamic panel threshold model on 62 middle- and high-income countries spanning the period 1987–2016, we re-examine the possible nonlinearity between finance, foreign direct investment, and growth. Consistent with the “vanishing effect” of financial development, we find significant evidence that foreign direct investment fosters growth in general, but the growth effect of foreign direct investment becomes negligible when the ratio of private sector credit to gross domestic product exceeds 95.6%. This finding is robust to different econometric methods, various subsamples and interaction analyses, and distinct financial development indicators.     

Multidimensional financial development,exporter behavior and export diversification

Financial development shapes export sector performance because exporters need external finance and face credit constraints. Previous empirical research has relied largely on single-country studies. The Exporter Dynamics Database (EDD), which features firm-level exports from over 60 countries, reveals differences in the microstructure of the export sector across countries. In this paper, we first provide new evidence that these differences are related to cross-country variation in financial development and structure. Second, we combine the EDD and multidimensional data on financial development with a global database on export diversification. This study is the first to examine how macrolevel export diversification is determined by the microcharacteristics of the export sector. This approach is novel in the empirical literature on export diversification. According to our cross-country analysis, access to domestic financial services positively contributes to export diversification by increasing the number of small exporters, as financial services ease the credit constraints these exporters face.     

Financial markets, the pattern of industrial specialization and comparative advantage: Evidence from OECD countries

Due to underlying technological and organizational differences, industries differ in their need for external finance. Since services provided by the financial sector are largely immobile across countries, the pattern of industrial specialization should be influenced by the level of financial development. Among OECD countries we find a strong causal effect of the financial sector on industrial specialization. Further, the financial sector is a source of comparative advantage in a way consistent with the Hecksher-Ohlin-Vanek model. Results are also presented on which aspects of financial systems are important for specialization and comparative advantage.     

Remittances,financial development,and growth

Despite the increasing importance of remittances in total international capital flows, the relationship between remittances and growth has not been adequately studied. This paper studies one of the links between remittances and growth, in particular how local financial sector development influences a country's capacity to take advantage of remittances. Using a newly-constructed dataset for remittances covering about 100 developing countries, we find that remittances boost growth in countries with less developed financial systems by providing an alternative way to finance investment and helping overcome liquidity constraints. This finding controls for the endogeneity of remittances and financial development, does not depend on the particular measure of financial sector development used, and is robust to a number of robustness tests, including threshold estimation. We also provide evidence that there could be an investment channel trough which remittances can promote growth especially when the financial sector does not meet the credit needs of the population.     

Financial Returnees as New Agents in East Asia: The Case of Korean Private Equity Funds

Although the standing of Anglo-American capitalism has been badly damaged by the global economic crisis, the return of the state in emerging markets is by no means assured. Over the past decade, financial processes originating in Anglo-American markets, such as derivatives, hedge funds and mergers and acquisitions (M&A), have made quiet headway in emerging markets. One of the transmission channels is financial returnees, defined as elites returning to domestic finance from either global finance abroad or from foreign financial institutions in their home countries. Many financial returnees pursue business agendas that parallel the Anglo-American model, while portraying themselves as local for domestic constituencies. These actions are now especially visible in the rise of private equity funds in emerging markets. This article defines the concept of a financial returnee and charts the impact of these individuals in importing the Anglo-American private equity model to Asia with Korea as the primary case study. Once foreign-controlled, the private equity industry in Korea is now domestically-run and financial returnees have been integral in this sector's short but important history.     

民间金融与中小企业发展:对温州的实证分析

本文以温州为例对中小企业发展与民间金融互动关系问题进行了实证分析。温州中小企业 (尤其是规模居中的中小企业 )对于民间金融有着较为明显的需求。在民间金融供给方面 ,我们对温州介入中小企业信贷的民间金融规模及运作方式进行了分析。本文认为 ,政府需要建立多元化的中小企业融资服务体系 ,引导民间金融组织逐步演化为规范化运作的、定位于中小企业融资服务的民营金融机构 ,才能从根本上解决中小企业融资问题     

Financial flows and economic growth in developing countries

This paper assesses the impact of financial flows and their composition on the real exchange rate and on economic growth for a sample of low- and middle-income countries over the period of 1980–2012. Financial flows can directly support economic growth by relaxing constraints on domestic resources, but can also indirectly weaken growth through appreciation of the real exchange rate. We use the generalized method of moments (GMM) for dynamic panel. Results show that net financial flows affect economic growth both directly and indirectly: (i) a one percent increase in total financial flows appreciates the real exchange rate by 0.5 percent; (ii) the real exchange rate appreciation effect of remittances is twice the effect of aid and ten times greater than the effect of Foreign Direct Investments; (iii) financial flows stimulate economic growth regardless of the development level. An increase of $10 per capita financial flows leads to a gain of 0.08 points of annual growth. This gain amounts to 0.15 when we control for the negative impact of the real exchange rate. Instability of market-oriented flows, such as FDI and portfolio investments, exacerbates instability of the economic growth rate.     

Ownership structure and investment finance in transition economiesA survey of evidence from large firms in Hungary and Poland1

Using survey data on 157 large private Hungarian and Polish companies this paper investigates links between ownership structures and CEOs’ expectations with regard to sources of finance for investment. The Bayesian estimation is used to deal with the small sample restrictions, while classical methods provide robustness checks. We found a hump‐shaped relationship between ownership concentration and expectations of relying on public equity. The latter is most likely for firms where the largest investor owns between 25 percent and 49 percent of shares, just below the legal control threshold. More profitable firms rely on retained earnings for their investment finance, consistent with the ‘pecking order’ theory of financing. Finally, firms for which the largest shareholder is a domestic institutional investor are more likely to borrow from domestic banks.     

Political instability: Effects on financial development, roots in the severity of economic inequality

We here bring forward strong evidence that political instability impedes financial development, with its variation a primary determinant of differences in financial development around the world. As such, it needs to be added to the short list of major determinants of financial development. First, structural conditions first postulated by Engerman and Sokoloff (2002) as generating long-term inequality are shown here to have strong empirical support as exogenous determinants of political instability. Second, that exogenously-determined political instability in turn holds back financial development, even when we control for factors prominent in the last decade’s cross-country studies of financial development. The findings indicate that inequality-perpetuating conditions that result in political instability and weak democracy are fundamental roadblocks for international organizations like the World Bank that seek to promote financial development. The evidence here includes country fixed effect regressions and an instrumental model inspired by Engerman and Sokoloff’s (2002) work, which to our knowledge has not yet been used in finance and which is consistent with current tests as valid instruments. Four conventional measures of national political instability – Alesina and Perotti’s (1996) well-known index of instability, a subsequent index derived from Banks’ (2005) work, and two indices of managerial perceptions of nation-by-nation political instability – persistently predict a wide range of national financial development outcomes. Political instability’s significance is time consistent in cross-sectional regressions back to the 1960s, the period when the key data becomes available, robust in both country fixed effects and instrumental variable regressions, and consistent across multiple measures of instability and of financial development. Overall, the results indicate the existence of an important channel running from structural inequality to political instability, principally in nondemocratic settings, and then to financial backwardness. The robust significance of that channel extends existing work demonstrating the importance of political economy explanations for financial development and financial backwardness. It should help to better understand which policies will work for financial development, because political instability has causes, cures, and effects quite distinct from those of many of the key institutions most studied in the past decade as explaining financial backwardness.     

融资约束与企业出口行为:基于工业企业数据的经验研究

采用2000—2007年的3万多家工业企业数据,本文构造了包括内源融资、商业信贷以及企业信用特征等变量的企业融资约束综合指标。基于Heckman选择模型的经验研究表明,企业融资状况的改善不仅能提高企业出口的概率,而且对其出口规模也有重要影响。研究还发现融资状况改善对外资企业出口影响最显著;与国有企业相比,民营企业虽受到更严重的融资约束,但其出口表现并未更差。此外,融资状况改善对那些高外源融资依赖度行业的企业出口具有更明显的促进作用。     

中国金融制度变革的地区差异研究

由于经济增长与金融成长有极强的内生关联，中国东部与中西部经济发展的地带性差异决定了金融体系的分布格局和发展层次。从面上看，随着发达地区经济的发展和金融的深化，优势要素会由区域内向区域外扩散和辐射，在一定程度上改造落后地区的经济-金融因素，区域金融的发展空间得以扩展，从而逐步形成统一的金融市场。从点上看，民营经济的快速发展和民间金融对民营经济的内在性金融支持，决定了民间金融在金融体制变革和金融市场化过程中的重要地位。     

国际碳金融市场发展对我国的启示及借鉴

碳金融市场的发展为控制温室气体排放提供了市场化的手段,同时也促进了金融交易的拓展与金融产业的升级。介绍了国际碳金融市场的市场结构、发展现状及主要经验,认为我国应该借鉴国际碳金融市场发展的经验,从健全法律法规、完善碳交易制度、培育碳金融服务中介、建立碳金融产品体系等方面入手构建我国的碳金融市场。     

Smoothing sudden stops

Emerging economies are often exposed to sudden shortages of international financial resources. Yet domestic agents do not seem to take preventive measures against these sudden stops. We highlight the central role played by the limited development of ex ante (insurance) and ex post (spot) domestic financial markets in generating this collective undervaluation of international resources. We study several policies to counteract the external underinsurance. We do this by solving for the optimal mechanism given the constraints imposed by limited financial development, and then considering the main financial policies—in terms of the model and practical relevance—that implement this solution.     

经济体制改革与中国金融安全——问题、逻辑和对策

国家注资依赖所导致的超经济货币发行基础上的金融运行,是我国金融不安全因素的核心表现。金融对经济改革的支持、金融改革和全球化冲击是其主要形成逻辑,保障金融安全的根本在于坚持国家综合发展战略,长期保持国家净财富积累和稳定市场信心。     

REMITTANCES AND FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENT: SUBSTITUTES OR COMPLEMENTS IN ECONOMIC GROWTH?

Recent studies indicate that the effect of migrants’ remittances on the economic growth of receiving countries depends negatively on the level of development of the domestic financial sector. In this paper, we introduce a new indicator of financial development to measure the efficiency of the domestic banking system, and find the existence of complementarity between remittances and bank efficiency in economic growth, such that remittances promote growth only in countries whose banks function well. This result is robust to controls for other traditional measures of financial depth and institutional quality indicators.     

关于我国农村金融与农业技术进步的实证分析——基于时间序列数据的研究

金融发展通过＂资本积累＂和＂技术进步＂两条途径来实现对经济增长的影响,技术进步才是决定长期经济增长的关键因素。判断（农村）金融能否可持续发展的标准应该是其能否促进（农业）技术进步。基于1985-2005年的时间序列数据的实证分析,认为我国农村金融发展与农业技术进步之间存在着长期的、均衡的、单向因果关系,即农业技术进步对农村金融发展有着推动作用,而农村金融发展对我国农业技术进步的作用不明显。因此,我国农村金融深化改革应该以促进农业技术进步为导向,以实现农村金融资源的优化配置。     

Private Pension Funds in Oligopolistic Financial Markets: Some qualifications to conventional theory of financial development

The paper inquires into the efficiency of financial development policies in economies where the financial sector is based on oligopolistic commercial banking. In this case, interest rates on deposits may be set below the level required to achieve balance of payments equilibrium, so that banks are able to exact a risk free financial margin in their holdings of government bonds. Under such circumstances, banks lack incentives to place indirect debt in domestic security markets, as a means of providing long-term finance; and private capital market deepening is hindered. Pension fund privatisation, in this institutional environment, does not relieve public finances, because the government must act as issuer of last resort in order to stabilise the currency. This point is illustrated with Mexican data, and some policy measures to deal with this situation in developing economies are proposed.     

离岸金融交易争端中的法律规避和公共秩序保留

离岸金融交易争端的特殊性使得有关法院在运用冲突规范处理此类纠纷的时候,对于法律规避和公共秩序保留等冲突法上的传统问题感到尤为棘手。本文认为,在离岸金融交易中,应该适当允许法律规避;但为了防止个案对一国金融秩序的严重影响,公共秩序保留应当得到充分、合理地运用,并应以国际公共秩序为今后的发展方向。     

完善河北省新型农村合作医疗财政保障机制的思考

新型农村合作医疗制度有效地解决了中国农民“看病难”问题,而有效的政府财政补贴又是该制度可持续发展的关键所在。当前河北省新型农村合作医疗财政保障机制中存在基层政府财政负担较重、推广资金匮乏、财政支出缺乏明确资金来源、农民就医不公平等问题。应在公共性原则、财力匹配原则、均等化原则的指导下,逐步提高财政投入水平,明确资金来源,重新调整省市县三级财政负担比例并进行配套措施完善。     

金融机构发展物流金融的思路和对策

物流金融是基于物流增值链中的供应商、终端用户、金融机构和物流企业等各方的共同需要所产生和发展的。物流金融的产生和发展离不开金融机构,同时也给现代金融业带来了前所未有的机遇。目前,物流金融在国内处于萌芽时期,各方需要大力发展物流金融以实现多方的共赢。