Panel evidence on finance,institutions and economic growth

This article investigates whether the level of institutional development affects the link between financial development and economic growth. Using a range of cross-sectional and panel approaches we find that the positive effect of banking development on growth is reduced as the level of institutions (e.g. rule of law, lack of corruption) increases. We do not, however, find a similar result when we examine the joint effect of institutional level and stock market development on economic growth. We attribute these results to the ability of banks to perform functions similar to those provided by well-operating institutions, whereas stock markets do not perform such comparable functions.     

Financial market development,global financial crisis and economic growth: evidence from developing nations

Emerging and frontier markets in Africa have witnessed various economic and financial reforms aimed at integrating the domestic markets into the global financial market to attract investment. Whether these reforms promote high economic growth remains inconclusive. The paper applies the pooled mean group estimation technique to empirically re-investigate the link between financial market development, global financial crisis, and economic growth in selected African economies. The results strongly support our hypotheses that stock market and banking sector development promotes economic growth in the selected countries. Moreover, financial crisis reduce the positive effects of both the stock market and banking sector developments on economic growth. The study suggests that both the banking sector and stock market are important to deliver the long-run economic growth that the African region desired. Moreover, effort should be made to enact policy measures that would ensure development of the stock market which has received inadequate attention.     

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.     

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.     

Financial market development and trade openness: evidence from emerging economies

International trade is said to be the engine of economic growth. Despite an enormous effort to explain this phenomenon, the relationship between financial market development and trade openness and integration into the world economy is still an enigma. This article investigates the relationship between financial market development and trade openness. To do this, we develop a long-run and short-run model (a bounds testing approach to cointegration) for 18 emerging economies over the period 1980 to 2011. Estimates from all models show that financial market development, including both the stock market and the banking sector, has significant effect on trade openness in both short-run and long-run phenomena in the majority of countries. Despite many similarities among emerging economies, additional evidence suggests that the link between either stock market development or banking sector development with trade openness works via each country’s specific structure.     

Financial intermediation,inclusion, Fintech,and income inequality in Africa: Robust evidence from the supply and demand side data

The current literature on the finance-inequality nexus fall short of providing extensive evidence. This paper fills the gap by framing the financial sector; to the development of financial intermediation (supply side) and individual use of financial services (demand side). The first approach decouples the financial sector into the banking and stock market. We use the 5-year nonoverlapping averaged data from 1980 to 2017 across 49 countries and employ a panel data fixed effect and two-stage least squared estimation (2sls). We show that banking and stock market development widens income inequality. Besides, the effect is more prominent in countries that have a banking and stock market than countries only with the banking sector. The second approach uses financial inclusion and financial technology (Fintech) data from three waves of survey data in 2011, 2014 and 2017 on the individual use of financial services across 39 countries. We obtain three key findings. First, institutional quality significantly affects financial inclusion and Fintech. Second, Fintech positively affects inclusion and savings. Third, financial inclusion and Fintech exacerbate income inequality. Our result asserts a natural tendency that financial sector development exacerbate income inequality in Africa.     

The effect of financial development on economic growth: evidence from the APEC countries, 1981–2000

Using the modified growth model, this study examines whether financial development would facilitate economic growth among the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) countries from 1981 to 2000. It focuses on the effects of three aspects of financial development on growth: stock market, banking sector and capital flow. To control for the country-specific effect, the model is further estimated for the developed and developing member countries. Results suggest that among the three financial sectors, only the stock market development shows strong growth-enhancing effect, especially among the developed member countries. This positive relationship remains very robust even after controlling for the simultaneity bias. Thus, there is no evidence to suggest that the level of financial infrastructure development does affect the overall finance–growth relationship observed in this study.     

Roles played by financial development in economic growth: application of the flexible regression model

This study presents the nonlinear relationship that exists between financial development and economic growth. This study applies the flexible nonlinear regression model of Hamilton (Econometrica 69(3):537–573, 2001) because it imposes no specification restrictions. Two empirical results are obtained. First, an inverted U-shaped relation between banking sector development and economic growth is identified. Namely, the two variables are positively linked before the turning point, but negatively linked after it. Second, a positive relationship with asymmetric √-shape between stock market development and economic growth is found.     

Financial systems and economic growth in South Africa: a dynamic complementarity test

This study examines the relationship between banks, stock markets and economic growth in South Africa. The study attempts to answer one critical question: are stock markets and banks complementary to one another in the process of enhancing economic growth? The complementarity between the stock markets and banks is examined by including a set of interactive terms in a standard growth model, alongside bank development and stock market development proxies. In order to test the robustness of the results, three proxies of stock market development have been used, namely stock market capitalization, stock market traded value and stock market turnover – against the ratio of bank credit to the private sector, a proxy for bank-based financial development. The economic growth is, however, proxied by real GDP per capita. Using the ARDL-Bounds testing procedure, the study finds that the complementarity between stock market development and bank-based financial development is weak and sensitive to the proxy used to measure stock market development.     

Inside Shadow Banking in China: Credit Driven Growth vs. Financial Stability

Shadow banking has been growing rapidly in China since the 2008 global financial crisis. Shadow banking has also played an increasing role in supplying credit. I investigate the development of the shadow banking sector, and assess its impacts on financial stability and economic growth in China. I argue that, due to the loose regulations and institutional characteristics of the shadow banks, these banks tend to adopt business practices that elevate institutional risks. At the systemic level, shadow banks have contributed to credit expansion and credit-driven growth. However, such growth entails significant financial risks and renders the macro-economy financially fragile. I conclude with a discussion of imminent fullblown financial crisis, calling for policy actions.     

Stock and credit market expansion and economic development in emerging markets: further evidence utilizing cointegration analysis

This paper empirically investigates the relationship between equity and credit market development and economic growth, in a sample of five very important ‘emerging’ markets. In particular, employing a multivariate time-series methodology to test for long-run trends and causality between variables that proxy for stock market development, credit market development and economic development. The results seem to suggest that equity markets have a role to play only in relatively liberalized economies, like Chile and Mexico. In financially repressed economies, like India, the equity market does not affect real sector growth. Furthermore, the banking crises in the 1980s and 1990s in Chile and Mexico resulted in a negative relation between economic growth and the credit market. In South Korea, equity and credit markets both affect economic growth, but not vice versa. In countries where the nature of the stock market has been speculative, like Taiwan, a negative relationship is detected between equity market development and economic development.     

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.     

International Financial Liberalization and Economic Growth

This paper pulls together existing theory and evidence to assess whether international financial liberalization, by improving the functioning of domestic financial markets and banks, accelerates economic growth. The analysis suggests that the answer is "yes." First, liberalizing restrictions on international portfolio flows tends to enhance stock market liquidity. n turn, enhanced stock market liquidity accelerates economic growth primarily by boosting productivity growth. Second, allowing greater foreign bank presence tends to enhance the efficiency of the domestic banking system. In turn, better-developed banks spur economic growth primarily by accelerating productivity growth. Thus, international financial integration can promote economic development by encouraging improvements in the domestic financial system.     

The role of the financial system in the growth–inflation link: the OECD experience

This paper jointly estimates the effects of financial development and inflation on growth using both cross-section and time-series dimensions of the data on inflation, growth, and some banking and stock market indicators over the period 1961–1993 for a sample of OECD countries. Overall, the results indicate, first, that the long-run costs of inflation are not explained by policies of financial repression and, second, that if inflation affects growth through its interaction with financial market conditions, this is not the only (nor the most important) channel.     

Banking,currency, stock market and debt crises in Spain, 1850–1995

What type of crisis is generated when debt increases? We extend the literature by framework by introducing currency and stock market crises in the analysis. We apply our proposal to the case of Spain, since this is a country that has experienced a very important amount of financial crises from the nineteenth century onwards. We find the same results as the previous literature for the determinants of banking and debt crises but substituting external and public debt with perpetual debt and where perpetual debt has a less important role than crises in the private sector. Moreover, we find evidence in favour of the hypothesis that currency crises depend strongly and positively on financial centre crises and negatively and mildly on perpetual debt. We justify the negative relalionship due to an inflation tax. We also find evidence in favour of the hypothesis that stock market crises depend only positively and strongly on financial centre crises.     

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.     

The impact of institutions on financial development: Evidence from East Asian countries

This paper examines the impact of institutions on regional financial development using a panel data model of 11 East Asian countries during 1996–2017. It divides the institutional factors into six economic factors and six legal‐political factors. The analysis demonstrates that the legal‐political institutional factors have a stronger impact on financial development than the economic institutional factors in East Asia. Improvement in institutional quality such as fiscal freedom, business freedom, control of corruption, government effectiveness, regulatory quality and rule of law can promote financial development. Improvements of these institutional factors facilitate the ability of enterprises to allocate resources and improve the strength of business operations, thereby reducing transaction costs and making the financial operating environment fairer and more efficient. With the improvement of institutional factors, financial development will have more opportunities to develop better. Institutional impacts are more pronounced in the financial development in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Myanmar than in the other countries such as China, Japan, Korea and Singapore.     

Economic growth in South-eastern Europe: the role of the banking sector

This article analyses the relationship between banking sector efficiency and economic growth using a panel data analysis of six South-eastern European countries during the period 1995–2005. The analysis is concentrated on the banking sector because other segments of the financial market are underdeveloped in our sample of countries. We measure the qualitative development in the banking sectors by using the margin between lending and deposit interest rates as well as the share of non-performing loans. By applying the panel data method in a growth-type equation setting, we confirm that improvements in banking sector efficiency, measured through the decreasing interest rate spread, exerted a positive influence on the growth rate of the countries in the region.     

The Impact of the GFC on Sectoral Market Efficiency: Non‐linear Testing for the Case of Australia

This paper investigates the efficiency of the Australian stock market during the period of volatility and disruption associated with the Global Financial Crises (GFC). Furthermore, the investigation seeks to observe any divergence in market efficiency between industry sectors that demonstrate differing economic performance across the period. Spanning a time period of 2000–2015, the data are split into three periods of distinct economic conditions: a pre‐crisis period of relatively high growth, the GFC period of disruption and contraction, and a post‐GFC period of relatively low growth. Five sector indices listed on the Australian Securities Exchange are analysed to search for evidence of market efficiency (Real Estate, Consumer Discretionary, Financials, Materials, and Metals and Mining). A range of non‐linear tests are applied in order to systematically investigate the structure of the market in each sector. The results highlight the cointegrated nature of non‐linearity across related sectors, and also demonstrate that different industries within the same economy can reveal highly diverse patterns of non‐linearity and market efficiency in response to financial crisis.     

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。