Financial development and governance relationships

In any country, financial development has a huge influence on country’s economic developments. Financial development strengthens financial stability of countries and enhances deep and broad access to capital and financial services by improving efficiency of financial markets and effectiveness of financial intermediation. The purpose of this study is to identify the relationships between various aspects (pillars) of financial development and dimensions of governance for countries listed in the Financial Development Index of the World Economic Forum. The Index provides a score for the breadth, depth and efficiency of 62 of the world’s leading financial markets. The study utilized the data from the World Economic Forum presented in the financial development report (2012) and attempted to model the relationships between various pillars of financial development and dimensions of governance by structural equation modelling (SEM) methodology. The study used the Worldwide Governance Indicators for year 2012 of the World Bank as the measure of governance. According to the SEM results, there seems to be a significant positive relationship between governance and financial development. Thus, as governance is enhanced, we may expect financial development to strengthen as well.     

Financial Intermediation and Occupational Choice in Development

This paper presents evidence that the spread between the marginal product of capital and the return on financial assets is much higher in poor than in rich countries. A model with costly intermediation is developed. In this economy, individuals choose at each instant whether to work or to operate a technology. Entrepreneurs finance their business with their own savings and, if necessary, by borrowing from banks. I find that in this framework intermediation costs are not equivalent to a tax on the return of capital. The equivalence fails because costly intermediation affects not only the capital accumulation decision but also the occupational choice decision. I show that intermediation costs have important effects on per capita output and average business size in the economy. I conclude that taxing financial intermediaries can be a very bad policy for development. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: E20, E60, O11, O16.     

Optimal monetary and macroprudential policies: Gains and pitfalls in a model of financial intermediation

We estimate a quantitative general equilibrium model with nominal rigidities and financial intermediation to examine the interaction of monetary and macroprudential stabilization policies. The estimation procedure uses credit spreads to help identify the role of financial shocks amenable to stabilization via monetary or macroprudential instruments. The estimated model implies that monetary policy should not respond strongly to the credit cycle and can only partially insulate the economy from the distortionary effects of financial frictions/shocks. A counter-cyclical macroprudential instrument can enhance welfare, but faces important implementation challenges. In particular, a Ramsey planner who adjusts a leverage tax in an optimal way can largely insulate the economy from shocks to intermediation, but a simple-rule approach must be cautious not to limit credit expansions associated with efficient investment opportunities. These results demonstrate the importance of considering both optimal Ramsey policies and simpler, but more practical, approaches in an empirically grounded model.     

Dollarization and the inflation threshold

Abstract.  Empirical evidence suggests non-linearity in the impact of inflation on financial intermediation and real activity. Evidence also suggests that high inflation affects financial intermediation through the substitution of dollars 'under the mattress' for savings in domestic banks. We model an economy where inflation and real activity are positively related at low levels of inflation. However, when the inflation rate exceeds a threshold, agents substitute dollars for deposits issued by domestic banks, reducing the scale of financial intermediation and investment. As a consequence, at high levels of inflation, capital stock and output become negatively related to the inflation rate.     

Assessing the predictive power of financial spreads in the euro area: does parameters instability matter?

In the empirical literature there is wide consensus that financial spreads cannot constitute a broadly based assessment on future output growth and inflation because the bivariate estimated regressions are not stable over time and lead to relatively poor out-of-sample forecasting performance (e.g. J Econ Liter 41:788–829, 2003). This conclusion arised for the USA, as well as for several European countries. In this paper we check whether the marginal predictive content of some financial spreads (the slope of the yield curve, the reverse yield gap and the credit spread) for macroeconomic forecasting in the euro area can be recovered using techniques taking into account potential parameters instability. We set up a quarterly Bayesian vector autoregression model with time-varying coefficients, comprising both target variables, as well as other monetary policy indicators, to serve as a benchmark. Then, the properties of the spreads as leading indicators are assessed by augmenting this benchmark BVAR with the spreads, one at a time. We find time variation of the coefficients to be a relevant issue in our model, especially for forecasting output growth, but financial spreads continue to have no or negligible marginal predictive content for both output growth and inflation. Overall, our results confirm that there is no ready-to-use financial spread that can replace an encompassing multivariate model for the prediction of target variables in the euro area.      

A simple endogenous growth model of financial intermediation with multiplicity and indeterminacy

This paper analyzes the role of financial intermediation in a simple endogenous growth model. The results suggest that multiple endogenous growth paths can exist in connection with various levels of financial development, due to the reciprocal externality between financial and real sectors. According to multiplicity, the growth effects of shocks on the technology of intermediation are opposite, depending on the balanced growth path. Furthermore, transitional dynamics is examined, and reveals that the high equilibrium is a saddle path, while the low-growth is locally stable. Therefore, the model presents local and global indeterminacy. These theoretical results support the large empirical literature on the relationship between financial development and growth which depicts conflicting impacts.     

Foreign banks and the business environment in transition: a cointegration approach

The contribution of foreign banks to the development of the financial sectors in emerging markets, and especially the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe, is well-known. The purpose of this article is to focus on an area of foreign bank influence that has thus far only begun to emerge from the extant literature: the effect of foreign banks on the broader business environment in transition. In addition to improving financial intermediation and broader access to credit, has the presence of foreign financial institutions helped to shape a better business environment in the long-run? Or did foreign banks retard local institutional development and thus worsen the overall business environment? Using cointegration techniques across a sample of 21 diverse transition countries from 1983 to 2015, I find that foreign bank entry had a positive impact across business environment indicators, but with some indicators taking longer to influence than others. The policy implications are that business environments can be improved by facilitating foreign bank entry rather than restricting it.     

金融中介发展、政府干预与企业技术创新——来自我国转轨经济的经验证据

以我国制造业375家企业2005-2007年的面板数据为样本,实证考察了区域金融中介发展、政府干预与企业技术创新之间的关系。结果表明:金融中介发展与企业技术创新之间存在显著的正向关系;政府干预对企业技术创新具有显著的负效应;政府干预越强,金融中介与企业技术创新间的相关性越弱,较强的政府干预会削弱金融中介对企业技术创新的促进作用。基于结论,就如何提升我国企业技术创新水平,提出了相应的金融发展建议。     

The impact of formal financial inclusion on informal financial intermediation and cash preference: evidence from Africa

This paper examines the effect of formal financial intermediation (inclusion) on informal financial intermediation and the use of cash for economic activities. Using data from the Global Findex 2014, we examine whether the use of formal financial intermediaries reduces cash preference and the use of informal financial intermediaries. Our empirical results show that informal financial intermediation is positively associated with formal financial inclusion. This indicates that the relationship between informal and formal financial intermediation is complementary rather than a trade-off, which demonstrates the importance of informal finance plays in the financial system of Africa. Moreover, the use of formal financial intermediaries significantly reduces the preference for holding cash, implying that a robust financial system infrastructure has the potential of mobilizing excess liquidity in the informal economy of Africa for growth and development.     

Product mix,transactions and cost behaviour: a study of South African bank branches

This paper utilizes microeconomic theory and a panel data set to assess the impact of product mix and transactions on cost behaviour of bank branches in South Africa over the short and long‐term. Estimates of properties of concavity and monotonocity indicate that the cost functions of typical bank branches in South Africa are neither consistent with short‐term nor long‐term cost‐minimizing behaviour. This corroborates earlier findings which indicate that South African banks have low production efficiency and high market power. In addition the cost functions and two production‐output type indices indicate that overall, the intermediation‐output type mix (foreign exchange and custodial services) has a more significant effect on cost behaviour than the production‐output type mix (cheque and deposit accounts). The variety of production‐output type services provided by a branch appears to have limited effect on costs. However the financial value of production‐output type transactions has an impact on costs while the financial value of intermediation type products does not. Branches that provide intermediation‐output type products tend to have higher variable costs – the key determinant of costs is the number of transactions.     

Financial development and economic growth: long‐run equilibrium and transitional dynamics

We analyze the impact of financial development on economic growth. Differently from previous studies that focus mainly on balanced growth path outcomes, we also analyze the transitional dynamics of our model economy by using a finance‐extended Uzawa–Lucas framework where financial intermediation affects both human and physical capital accumulation. We show that, under certain rather general conditions, economic growth may turn out to be non‐monotonically related to financial development (as suggested by the most recent empirical evidence) and that too much finance may be detrimental to growth. We also show that the degree of financial development may affect the speed of convergence, which suggests that finance may play a crucial role in determining the length of the recovery process associated with exogenous shocks. Moreover, in a special case of the model, we observe that, under a realistic set of parameters, social welfare decreases with financial development, meaning that even when finance positively affects economic growth the short‐term costs associated with financial activities more than compensate their long‐run benefits.     

Costly financial intermediation and excess consumption volatility

This paper documents the cyclical properties of financial intermediation costs and uses their dynamics to explain excess consumption volatility (ECV) differences across countries in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium framework with housing market. I find that financial development levels have a limited role in explaining ECVs. Instead, the volatility of financial sectors plays the determinative role. Consistent with the data, the model finds higher ECVs in emerging countries. The paper also shows that if the US had the same intermediation cost structure as Turkey, deteriorations in the production and consumption following a financial shock would increase threefold.     

AN OVER‐THE‐COUNTER APPROACH TO THE FOREX MARKET

The foreign exchange (FOREX) market is an over‐the‐counter market characterized by intermediation and significant bid–ask spreads. However, most of the existing international macroeconomics literature models the FOREX as a standard Walrasian market. This article constructs a dynamic general equilibrium model of intermediation in the FOREX market. We use our framework to compute standard measures of FOREX liquidity, such as bid–ask spreads and trade volume, and study how they are affected by macroeconomic fundamentals and market microstructure. We also study how FOREX market microstructure affects the volume of international trade and, consequently, welfare. Our empirical exercise offers support to the models' main predictions.     

Intermediation costs and capital flows

In this paper, we modify the standard neoclassical model by incorporating financial intermediation in order to deliver returns consistent with the observation that capital primarily flows to middle income countries. We build a static contracting framework where costly intermediation together with an adverse selection problem have quantitatively important effects on capital flows. When intermediation costs are ignored, the model behaves like the neoclassical model in terms of capital returns. However, when intermediation costs are considered, returns to capital in middle income countries could exceed those in poor and rich countries—high costs of intermediation cause poor countries to concentrate their investments in projects with low returns, while the standard neoclassical effect lowers returns in capital-rich countries. When we embed the return function from the static analysis in a two-country dynamic model, there is capital outflow from a poor country that removes capital controls and becomes open. Even though the closed economy dominates in terms of capital employed in production, it is the open economy that dominates in terms of income, consumption and welfare.     

Financial intermediation,consumption dynamics,and business cycles

The recent financial crisis highlighted the need to deepen our understanding of the impact of the financial intermediation sector on the real economy. We examine the quantitative implications of financial intermediation and firm's financing frictions in explaining the observed cyclical properties of both real and financial variables. We find that a modified version of the financial intermediation framework of Gertler and Karadi (2011) augmented with financing frictions in production does a good job in matching the unconditional moments of financial fluctuations without compromising key real co-movements. Our results are relevant for macro-prudential policy analysis as they underscore the importance of carefully identifying the sources of aggregate fluctuations in models in which financial intermediaries and financial frictions play a non-trivial role.     

农村金融发展、金融中介效率与农村经济增长：1978-2008

文章利用1978—2008的年度数据,通过协整检验、向量误差修正模型、G ranger因果检验等方法实证检验了农村金融发展、金融中介效率与农村经济增长的关系。实证结果表明,农村金融发展规模的提升并未促进农村经济增长,而农村金融中介效率的提升有助于农村经济增长。农村金融发展滞后于农村经济增长,二者之间并未形成良性互动机制。继续推进农村金融改革,扩大农村金融供给,突破农村金融促进农村经济增长的＂门槛＂,同时提升支农贷款的效率是农村金融进一步发展的方向。     

反哺与分配:金融中介对经济增长的影响

企业家能力与物质资本的结合可以促进经济增长,而这两种要素禀赋可能由不同的个体持有,因此,只有在个体间合理分配这两个要素的报酬,经济才能增长。本文给出微观机制来表明企业家能力异质的一群个体如何形成金融中介联盟,并在个体层面引进无穷期动态拉姆齐模型,个体通过优化自身的选择而促进整个社会的经济增长。我们还给出了富人扶持穷人的价格涓流效应和反哺涓流效应,来描述金融中介对经济增长以及收入分配影响的途径。     

Increasing Wealth and Increasing Instability: The Role of Collateral

In development economics, growth in credit is generally associated with faster long-run growth as financial intermediation improves the efficiency of channeling capital to productive investment. Yet, among developing countries high growth in credit almost always guarantees the outbreak of a financial crisis. The authors attempt to reconcile the two seemingly contradictory facts with an endogenous growth model in which entry to international borrowing entails some significant fixed cost. The poorest countries are excluded from international borrowing because of the fixed cost. The higher-income developing countries will find it optimal to sink the fixed cost to borrow internationally, growing faster as a result, but also become prone to fluctuations arising from shocks to the international financial market.     

Differences in growth with international capital markets and financial innovation

This paper presents a model in which technological progress affects the productivity of the financial sector. When technological progress moves quicky, the financial intermediation costs are low, which increases the incentives to invest in new technology. This feedback process involves two types of long-run equilibria: one with low financial intermediation costs and high growth, and the other with high financial intermediation costs and low growth. These divergences in growth rates among countries hold even in the presence of international capital markets with free capital mobility, a very unusual result in the endogenous growth literature.     

FINANCIAL INTERMEDIATION SERVICES INDIRECTLY MEASURED: ESTIMATES FOR FRANCE AND THE U.K. BASED ON THE APPROACH ADOPTED IN THE 1993 SNA

The 1993 SNA proposes a revised treatment of the output of financial intermediaries which treats intermediation services in part as a component of final demand, so that GDP is higher than the 1968 SNA suggests. In this paper we present the results of attempts to estimate FISIM (Financial Intermediation Services Indirectly Measured) for France and the U.K. The French study uses a reference rate calculated to ensure that no imputation is made with respect to own funds, while the U.K. study relies on a market interest rate. Both studies present an allocation of intermediation services by industry as well as by category of demand. The adjustments to GDP are of similar magnitudes in both countries.