This paper evaluates recent findings by researchers at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on "too much finance." It first critiques the OECD findings, which seem to imply that the optimal amount of finance is zero, given the linear specification of the main tests....

This study suggests that Asian emerging-market economies now have financial sectors relatively unlikely to provoke new financial crises, either because of reforms after the late-1990s East Asian financial crisis or because of the dominance of state-owned banks not subject to bank runs. Financial...