Does financialization retard growth? Time series and cross-sectional evidence

Although financial development is essential for economic development, excessive financialization of the economy is believed to exert a negative effect on output growth. In this article, empirical evidence is presented on the relation between economic growth and financialization as measured by the ratio of credit to GDP and the ratio of publicly traded shares to GDP. The empirical results are based on annual time series data for six country groups as well as cross-sectional data covering a large number of countries. The model is initially specified with unobserved components and estimated in a time-varying parametric framework to account for missing variables. Thereafter, the issue of linear versus quadratic specifications is examined. The results are robust with respect to model specification, estimation method, data type and variable definition, showing in general that financialization has a negative impact on growth. Some evidence is also presented to support the notion of the financial Kuznets curve.     

The role of institutions in finance curse: Evidence from international data

This paper investigates the effect of banking sector development on economic growth in a panel of 87 countries, paying particular attention to the role of institutions in reducing the finance curse phenomenon. The dynamic generalized method-of-moments (GMM) results indicate that institutions play an important role in mediating the positive relationship between banking sector development and growth. This suggests that the marginal impact of financial development on growth depends on institutional quality. Using the four-way partition of institutions classified by Rodrik (2005), we also find that resilient market-regulating, market-stabilizing, and market-creating institutions act as mediators to the financial market in facilitating growth. The results are robust to using alternative institutions indicators, estimation strategies, and stopping the sample before the 2007-2008 global financial crisis.     

Interest-Rate Reforms and Financial Deepening in Botswana: An Empirical Investigation

In this paper, we examine the impact of interest-rate reforms on financial deepening in Botswana, one of Africa's economic development success stories. We employ three proxies of financial deepening against deposit rate, a proxy for interest-rate reforms. The financial deepening in this study is defined as the increase in the relative size and role of the financial system in an economy. The empirical results of our study show that the impact of interest-rate reforms on financial deepening is sensitive to the variable used as a proxy for financial deepening. When the ratio of bank deposits to GDP (BD/GDP) is used as a proxy for financial deepening, the interest-rate reforms impact positively on the level of financial deepening. However, when the monetization variable (M2/GDP) and the ratio of the private sector credit to GDP (DCP/GDP) are used, the coefficient of the deposit rate in the financial deepening model turns out to be statistically insignificant. Overall, our results show that the positive impact of interest-rate reforms on financial deepening in Botswana is minimal. This outcome, though contrary to our expectations, is not surprising given the high level of population dependency in Botswana. Our results show that there is a strong negative relationship between the dependency ratio and financial deepening in Botswana.     

中国银行业高利润的来源:市场势力还是高效率

中国银行业的高利润究竟来源于行政垄断保护下的市场势力溢价,还是应对未来金融开放环境下的激烈竞争进行改革带来经营效率的提高,抑或是整体经济稳定增长的结果?通过对银行业系统市场势力和经营效率测度发现,银行业整体存在着较高的系统性市场势力溢价,且规模弹性小于1;银行业整体效率低下,全要素生产率平均增长为负值;银行业的高利润主要来源于行政垄断造成的行业系统性市场势力,而非因改革带来的效率提高,GDP的增长一定程度上促成了银行业的高利润。     

The Interaction of Financial Fragility and the Business Cycle in Determining Banks’ Loan Losses: An Investigation of the Italian Case

The Basel II capital accord and the recent crises have fostered the debate over the financial stability of the aggregate banking sector. Because loan losses are an important factor for banking stability, this paper aims to gauge the impact of real and financial fragility on default losses of Italian banks. To this end the ratio of non‐performing loans to total loans is regressed on the business cycle and indebtedness. In addition, to capture the joint effect of real and financial fragility, the analysis considers an interaction term, which to our knowledge has never been applied before to Italian default data. Based on the interaction model, results show that the actual impact of financial fragility on default losses depends not only on the business cycle phase but also on the firm's size, whereby in adverse economic conditions, small firms are more significantly affected by financial fragility.     

Insurance development,banking activities,and regional output: evidence from China

This paper applies panel cointegration tests and panel vector error correction models to investigate the interrelationship among the banking sector, insurance market, and regional output based on the samples from 25 Chinese provinces. We first find that there is a fairly strong long-run cointegrating relationship among real GDP, banking credit, and real insurance premiums. Second, both insurance markets (life and non-life) and the banking sector have a positive effect on real output. Third, we determine that banking activities and economic growth exhibit long-run and short-run bidirectional causalities. Fourth, there is fairly strong evidence in favor of the hypothesis for the long-run bidirectional causal relationships between insurance premiums and economic growth, taking into account the critical channel of the banking sector. Finally, we provide some beneficial suggestions for investors and policy-makers.     

Institutional Determinants of Financial Development in MENA countries

Developed and well regulated financial markets are usually seen as a precondition for an efficient allocation of resources and can foster long term economic growth. This paper explores the institutional determinants for financial development in the countries of the Middle East and North African (MENA) region. Institutional conditions are from the International Country Risk Guide. Panel‐econometric techniques are applied to assess the development in the banking sector and the stock market. As a main finding, institutional conditions are important in both financial segments, even after controlling for standard macroeconomic determinants and fixed effects. For the banking sector, corruption seems to be most decisive. For the stock market, the impact of corruption and law and order appear to be relevant. While per capita income and inflation do not seem to play a vital role, openness to foreign trade is quite important for all areas of financial development. Hence, overall, faster real economic integration is of key policy priority to improve financial development as a condition for higher GDP growth. Better law and enforcement practices and anti‐corruption policies are strategies to accompany this process.     

Re-examining the financial development and economic growth nexus in Kenya

This paper re-examines the causal relationship between financial development and economic growth in Kenya for the period 1966–2005 within a quadvariate vector autoregressive (VAR) framework by including exports and imports as additional variables to the finance–economic growth nexus. We use four conventionally accepted proxies for financial development, namely money supply (M2), liquid liabilities (M3), domestic bank credit to the private sector and total domestic credit provided by the banking sector (all percent of GDP). Applying a modified version of the Granger causality test due to Toda and Yamamoto [Toda, H.Y. and Yamamoto, T., Statistical inference in vector autoregressions with possibly integrated process. Journal of Econometrics 1995; 66; 225–250], our empirical results suggest that in three out of the four measures of financial development we found evidence of a two-way Granger causality: (1) between domestic credit provided by the banking sector and economic growth; (2) between total domestic credit provided by the banking sector and economic growth, and (3) between liquid liabilities and economic growth. This implies that neither the supply-leading nor the demand-following hypotheses are supported in Kenya and that economic growth and financial development are jointly determined, or they complement each other. A major implication of our finding is that financial development promotes economic growth in Kenya and that policies at enhancing the development of the financial sector can help to spur economic growth.     

房价波动、隐含担保与银行系统性风险*

银行对房地产行业的信贷优先倾向导致信贷投放向房地产业集中,房地产价格波动对金融系统性风险的影响日益突出。本文基于银行与房地产两部门或有权益资产负债表分析框架,从资产和负债两个方面研究房地产部门对银行的风险传导机制,构造银行对房地产部门的隐含担保比例作为度量风险传导强度的指标,运用TVP VAR方法刻画2002—2016年我国房价波动与房地产部门、银行系统性风险的动态演变路径。研究结果表明,我国房地产风险主要通过银行信贷从负债项进行风险传导,房地产部门风险对风险传导强度的影响存在明显的结构性突变,银行系统性风险存在非线性加速恶化特征。本文最后提出要稳定房价、拓宽房地产融资渠道、降低地方政府对土地财政依赖等建议。     

银行业竞争加剧还是抑制了企业金融化*

银行业竞争与企业金融化有多种关联机制，既可能加剧企业金融化，也可能抑制企业金融化。本文利用2007—2019年沪深两市A股非金融类上市公司的面板数据，考察了二者之间的关系。结果发现：（1）竞争性的银行业市场结构抑制了企业金融化。（2）银行业竞争不仅缓解了债务成本对企业利润的侵蚀，有助于缩小金融行业与实体企业之间的利润率差距，进而抑制企业利润追逐动机的金融化行为，而且通过引导信贷资源配置促进了企业创新，从而对实体企业金融投资产生挤出效应；此外，银行业竞争还通过促使银行积极发挥信息监督作用，抑制了企业内部人金融投机套利的机会主义行为。（3）银行业竞争对企业金融化的抑制效应在非国有企业、中小企业以及市场化水平较低地区的企业中更为显著。这些结果说明，提高银行业竞争水平有助于抑制企业金融化趋势，扭转经济“脱实向虚”的局面。     

Information disclosure, banking development and knowledge-driven growth

In this study we develop a knowledge-driven growth model which explicitly models the banking sector as monopolistically competitive. The main mechanism through which financial intermediaries affect the real economy is through the evaluation and provision of liquidity to R&D projects. We distinguish two scenarios. In the regime with information disclosure, banks are able to use the stock of information obtained by the banking industry from evaluating R&D projects. This information externality brings about efficiency improvements, thereby leading to a positive entry of banks, more bank-funded research and in turn positive economic growth. By contrast, in the regime with no information disclosure, it is not profitable for new banks to enter the industry. This implies that no more potential R&D projects can be evaluated and hence financed, thus leading the economy to a zero-growth equilibrium.     

风险投资驱动企业“脱虚向实”了吗

近年来，企业金融化现象在学术界备受关注。国内外研究表明，风险投资对企业投资和企业创新均具有积极影响，那么风险投资能否影响企业金融投资行为？以2009—2019年沪深两市首次公开发行的A股上市公司为研究样本，实证分析风险投资对企业金融化的影响。结果表明：风险投资对企业金融化具有显著抑制作用，且这种抑制作用存在异质性。具体而言，风险投资对企业金融化的抑制效应主要体现在制造企业、盈利能力较弱企业、非国有企业以及东部区域企业中。同时，机构投资者持股比例越高，风险投资对企业金融化的抑制作用越强。机制分析结果表明，风险投资通过促进企业实体投资抑制企业金融化。进一步分析发现，风险投资能够缓解被投企业融资约束，而融资约束的改善并未促进企业金融化，而是促进企业创新。结论可丰富风险投资与企业金融化相关领域研究，证明风险投资能够驱动实体企业“脱虚向实”，对政府发展多层次资本市场，引导金融回归实体具有一定的参考价值。     

Does the banking sector structure matter for credit procyclicality?

The aim of this paper is to investigate whether the banking sector structure matters in explaining credit procyclicality for 17 OECD countries over the 1986–2010 period. To this end, we first provide a detailed classification of the banking system structure through the use of a hierarchical clustering methodology. Relying on the estimation of panel VAR models and accounting for potential heterogeneity between countries, we then propose a measure of credit procyclicality based on the impulse-response function of credit to a shock in GDP. Our findings show that while credit significantly responds to shocks in GDP, the structure of the banking sector is not a key factor in assessing the procyclicality of credit for OECD countries.     

Remittances and banking sector breadth and depth: Evidence from Mexico

Despite the importance of remittances to developing countries, their impact on banking sector breadth and depth in recipient countries has been largely unexplored. We examine this topic using municipality-level data on the fraction of households receiving remittances and on measures of banking breadth and depth for Mexico. We find that remittances are strongly associated with greater banking breadth and depth, increasing the number of branches and accounts per capita and the amount of deposits to GDP. These effects are significant both statistically and economically, and are robust to the potential endogeneity of remittances, inclusion of a wide range of controls and even municipal fixed effects specifications using an alternative panel data set from a sample of municipalities.     

How index investment impacts commodities: A story about the financialization of agricultural commodities

This paper focuses on the impact of financial investors on agricultural prices, a phenomenon known as the financialization. In this aim, we check whether financial mechanisms drive extreme values and the mean of agricultural returns in the same way. Relying on the Threshold AutoRegressive Quantile (TQAR) methodology, we find evidence of reinforcement linkages between equity and agricultural markets since 2004, corresponding to the rise in inflows of institutional investors in commodity markets. These results show that agents impact more deeply commodity markets when the commodity index value is high. In addition, in extreme quantiles (0.75 and 0.90) of agricultural returns, the relationship between agricultural and stock returns is always significant when the commodity index return is in the higher regime. This finding suggests that, stock markets had a greater impact on agricultural price dynamics during the extreme movements which occurred during the 2007–2008 financial crisis, highlighting a potential influence of financial markets on the financialization of commodities.     

The political economy of the G20 agenda on financial regulation

The paper empirically examines the implementation record of international financial regulation of the banking sector. The study finds that the size of the banking sector and the presence of global systemically important banks (G-SIBs) are positively associated with a stronger implementation record. These results suggest that cooperative motives of internalising externalities, creating a level playing field and preserving financial stability play a role in explaining the implementation record. We find evidence that this cooperative behaviour may be driven by the self-interest of global players as the positive record is particularly strong in countries where large banking sectors and big banks are both present, and where regulation only applies to large players. Sectoral concentration, bank health and the share of foreign ownership yield more mixed results as regards their impact on implementation.     

How does financial development influence the impact of remittances on growth volatility?

This paper empirically examines how financial development influences the impact of remittances on GDP growth volatility. This empirical study is conducted using the panel smooth transition regression (PSTR) approach. The results show that the impact of remittances on GDP growth volatility is nonlinear and changes over time and across countries in function of financial development. More precisely, a high level of financial development helps remittances to have a high stabilizing impact. Therefore, public authorities in remittance recipient countries might implement policies that promote the financial sector in order to allow a high stabilizing impact of remittances.     

Inter-linkages between competition and stabilisation policies in the banking sector and stock market development in Europe

The banking sector and the stock market in Europe have been adversely impacted by a series of global financial crises over the last two decades. Major financial reforms were implemented to enhance the stability and competition within the banking sector. Measures were also implemented to create a vibrant stock market in Europe to stimulate economic growth in Europe. This study examines the interactions between stock market development, banking competition, and banking stability in European countries from 1996 to 2016. The purpose of the study is to understand the inter-linkages between these variables to ascertain the spillover impact of policy reforms in the banking sector on the stock market and vice-versa. Using a vector error-correction model, the study finds long-run and short-run inter-linkages between banking competition, banking stability, and stock market development in European countries. The study’s most robust result is that banking competition and banking stability stimulate stock market development in the long run. There is also some evidence that healthy competition in the banking sector and stock market development instils greater stability in the banking sector. The results suggest that policy measures put in place to create a vibrant stock market must include elevating banking competition and banking stability, with policymakers being cognizant that causality may be bidirectional.     

Bank loan versus financial lease: how do traditional and innovative approaches within the banking sector influence economic growth? A comparative analysis between the US and China

ABSTRACT

The argument over the effects of financial structures on economic growth remains unsettled. This study, therefore, compares the dynamic correlation and lead–lag relationship between the different financial approaches within the banking sector (that is, traditional bank loans versus innovative financial leasing) and economic growth. We employ a continuous wavelet analysis using time-series data from 1982–2017 from the US (the world’s largest developed country) and China (the world’s largest developing country). The empirical results show that (1) episodes of significant correlation usually emerge during periods of reform, crisis or policy implementation; and (2) in China, traditional banking promotes economic growth in the long term, while the real economy only imputes the evolution of banks during critical economic reforms in the short term. Meanwhile, financial leasing could only promote the development of the real economy under suitable regulation; and (3) in the US, before the crises, the irrational growth of the real economy could increase bank assets, while during the crises, the traditional banking approach harms economic growth, and after the crises, financial leases play an important role in recovery. Therefore, we suggest that policymakers should establish adequate policies and regulations to solve the situation.     

The Coevolution of Finance and Property Rights: Evidence from Transition Economies

The transition from communism to capitalism was necessarily accompanied by a sudden and abrupt increase in the financialization of society. This increase occurred in an environment that, even now, still has little experience with or expertise in financialization. Given that financialization occurred simultaneously with the growth and evolution of other political and economic institutions, the question arises: What was the effect on these other nascent institutions like property rights? This article empirically analyzes the relationship between financialization and property rights in transition countries. Using a unique monthly database of twenty transition countries over a period from 1989 to 2012, this article finds that the influence of financialization depends on which definition of “financialization” is used. In particular, increases in basic financial intermediation improved property rights. However, higher-order “financialization,” proxied here by the size of capital markets and the wages in the financial sector, appeared to have a negative impact on the development of broad-based property rights in transition.