Financial Dependence and Growth-英文文献.pdf

Financial Dep endence and Growth Raghuram G. Ra jan and Luigi Zingales University of Chicago NBER Abstract This pap er examines whether nancial development facilitates economic growth by scru- tinizing one rationale for such a relationship; that nancial development reduces the costs of external nance to rms. Sp ecically, we ask whether industrial sectors that are relatively more in need of external nance develop disprop ortionately faster in countries with more develop ed nancial markets. We nd this to b e true in a large sample of countries over the 1980s. We show this result is unlikely to b e driven by omitted variables, outliers, or reverse causality. (JEL O4, F3, G1) A large literature, dating at least as far back as Joseph A. Schump eter (1911), emphasizes the p ositive in uence of the development of a countrys nancial sector on the level and the rate of growth of its p er capita income. The argument essentially is that the services the nancial sector provides { of reallo cating capital to the highest value use without substantial risk of loss through moral hazard, adverse selection, or transactions costs { are an essential catalyst of economic growth. Empirical work seems consistent with this argument. For example, on the basis of data from 35 countries b etween 1860 and 1963, Raymond W. Goldsmith (1969, p48) Raghuram G. Ra jan and Luigi Zingales are b oth at the University of Chicago, Graduate Scho ol of Business, 1101 E 58th street, Chicago IL 60637. We thank George