We study the interest rate spread of the Argentine financial system during the last eighteen years. We analyze Granger causality of selected variables, and estimate econometric models that relate spread to macroeconomic and microeconomic factors. Resuls indicate that output growth and...

The document focuses on the econometric treatment of macro panels, known in literature as panel time series. This new approach rejects the assumption of slopes' homogeneity and handles nonstationarity. It also recognizes that the presence of cross-section dependence (CSD), i.e. some correlation...

The purpose of this paper is to assess whether the banking system, over and beyond its credit function, has a significant impact on per capita GDP by providing means of payment. An annual database of 85 countries spanning the 1980-2008 period is exploited to this end. On the descriptive front,...