This paper examines the short and medium term impact of financial reforms on stock market volatility in five East Asian emerging markets. Several newly proposed tests are employed to identify and verify the number and timing of structural breaks in the variance dynamics. The detected breakdates...

Using dynamic panel data techniques and several data sets, we provide new evidence on the effects of openness and institutions on financial development. Our findings suggest that openness and institutions are potentially very important factors for different aspects of financial development. They...

Using data from 72 countries for the period 1978-2000, we find that financial development has larger effects on growth when the financial system is embedded within a sound institutional framework. This is particularly true for poor countries, where more finance without sound institutions is...