Finance and Growth - Shortly Reconsidered

In the 1980s and 90s of the last century, one economic paradigm gained power: financial development was considered as a major determinant of economic growth and productivity (Levine, Loayza and Beck 2000). Typically, paradigms are based on assumptions. Reality made a reconsideration of the former results necessary. With the international crisis 2007 it became clear that financial development and credit booms might not only support growth but jeopardize the whole economic system. While there exists a huge literature on the finance growth nexus before the international financial crisis analyses on post-crisis developments are rare. In this empirical paper, we focus on these post-crisis developments and find that the finance-growth nexus has widely disappeared after crisis. This might go back to a deeper understanding of systemic and financial risk.