"Loayza and Rancire study the apparent contradiction between two strands of the literature on the effects of financial intermediation on economic activity. On the one hand, the empirical growth literature finds a positive effect of financial depth as measured by, for instance, private domestic...

"External exposure can be measured by the sensitivity of first and second moments of economic growth to openness and foreign shocks. This paper provides an empirical evaluation of external exposure using panel data methods for a worldwide sample of countries. Controlling for domestic conditions,...

"Drawing on the recent literature on economic institutions and the origins of economic development, the authors offer a political economy explanation of why institution building has varied so much across transition economies. They identify dependence on natural resources and the historical...

"The authors examine whether financial development boosts the growth of small firms more than large firms and hence provides information on the mechanisms through which financial development fosters aggregate economic growth. They define an industry's technological firm size as the firm size...

"Regulation is purportedly enacted to serve specific social purposes. In reality, however, it follows a more complex political economy process, where legitimate social goals are mixed with the objectives of particular interest groups. Whatever its justification and objectives, regulation can...

Analysis of a panel data set for 1976-98 shows that on balance stock markets and banks positively influence economic growth; findings that do not result from biases induced by simultaneity, omitted variables, or unobserved country-specific effects