Welcome to our book review site go-pdf.online!
You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Do Workers' Remittances Promote Financial Development?
"Workers' remittances to developing countries have become the second largest type of flows after foreign direct investment. The authors use data on workers' remittance flows to 99 developing countries from 1975-2003 to study the impact of remittances on financial sector development. In particular, they examine whether remittances contribute to increasing the aggregate level of deposits and credit intermediated by the local banking sector. This is an important question considering the extensive literature that has documented the growth-enhancing and poverty-reducing effects of financial development. The findings provide strong support for the notion that remittances promote financial development in developing countries."--World Bank web site.
How Does Bank Competition Affect Systemic Stability?
"Using bank level measures of competition and co-dependence, the authors show a robust positive relationship between bank competition and systemic stability. Whereas much of the extant literature has focused on the relationship between competition and the absolute level of risk of individual banks, they examine the correlation in the risk taking behavior of banks, hence systemic risk. They find that greater competition encourages banks to take on more diversified risks, making the banking system less fragile to shocks. Examining the impact of the institutional This paper is a product of the Finance and Private Sector Development Team, Development Research Group. It is part of a larger effort...
Finance and Economic Development
" The empirical literature on finance and development suggests that countries with better developed financial systems experience faster economic growth. Financial development-as captured by size, depth, efficiency, and reach of financial systems-varies sharply around the world, with large differences among countries at similar levels of income. This paper argues that governments play an important role in building effective financial systems and discusses different policy options to make finance work for development."--World Bank web site.
Financing Patterns Around the World
Using a firm-level survey database covering 48 countries, Beck, Demirgüç-Kunt, and Maksimovic investigate whether differences in financial and legal development affect the way firms finance their investments. The results indicate that external financing of investments is not a function of institutions, although the form of external finance is. The authors identify two explanations for this. First, legal and financial institutions affect different types of external finance in offsetting ways. Second, firm size is an important determinant of whether firms can have access to different types of external finance. Larger firms with financing needs are more likely to use external finance compared with small firms. The results also indicate that these firms are more likely to use external finance in more developed financial systems, particularly debt and equity finance. The authors also find evidence consistent with the pecking order theory in financially developed countries, particularly for large firms. This paper--a product of Finance, Development Research Group--is part of a larger effort in the group to understand firms' access to financial services.
Financial and Legal Institutions and Firm Size
The authors investigate how a country's financial institutions and the quality of its legal system explain the size attained by its largest industrial firms in a sample of 44 countries. Firm size is positively related to the size of the banking system and the efficiency of the legal system. Thus, the authors find no evidence that firms are larger in order to internalize the functions of the banking system or to compensate for the general inefficiency of the legal system. But they do find evidence that externally financed firms are smaller in countries that have strong creditor rights and efficient legal systems. This suggests that firms in countries with weak creditor protections are larger in order to internalize the protection of capital investment.
Financial Structure and Bank Profitability
Countries differ in the extent to which their financial systems are bank-based or market-based. The financial systems of Germany and Japan, for example, are considered bank-based because banks play a leading role in mobilizing savings, allocating capital, overseeing investment decisions of corporate managers, and providing risk management vehicles. The systems of the United States, and the United Kingdom are considered more market-based. Using bank-level data for a large number of industrial and developing countries, the authors present evidence about the impact of financial development, and structure on bank performance. They measure the relative importance of bank or market finance by the ...
Finance, Inequality, and Poverty
"While substantial research finds that financial development boosts overall economic growth, we study whether financial development disproportionately raises the incomes of the poor and alleviates poverty. Using a broad cross-country sample, we distinguish among competing theoretical predictions about the impact of financial development on changes in income distribution and poverty alleviation. We find that financial development reduces income inequality by disproportionately boosting the incomes of the poor. Countries with better-developed financial intermediaries experience faster declines in measures of both poverty and income inequality. These results are robust to controlling for other country characteristics and potential reverse causality"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Banking Services for Everyone?
Using information from 193 banks in 58 countries, the authors develop and analyze indicators of physical access, affordability, and eligibility barriers to deposit, loan, and payment services. They find substantial cross-country variation in barriers to banking and show that in many countries these barriers can potentially exclude a significant share of the population from using banking services. Correlations with bank- and country-level variables show that bank size and the availability of physical infrastructure are the most robust predictors of barriers. Further, the authors find evidence that in more competitive, open, and transparent economies, and in countries with better contractual a...
A New Database on Financial Development and Structure
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.
