文档介绍：stock Markets, Banks, and Economic Growth
By Ross LEVINE AND SARA ZERVOS *
Do well-functioning stock markets and banks promote long-run economic
growth? This paper shows that stock market liquidity and banking development
both positively predict growth, capital accumulation, and productivity improve-
ments when entered together in regressions, even after controlling for economic
and political factors. The results are consistent with the views that financial
markets provide important services for growth, and that stock markets provide
different services from banks. The paper also finds that stock market size, vola-
tility, and international integration are not robustly linked with growth, and that
none of the financial indicators is closely associated with private saving rates.
(JEL GOO, 016, ¥36)
Considerable debate exists on the relation- Besides the historical focus on banking,
sbips between the financial system and eco- there is an expanding theoretical literature on
nonMC growth. Historically, economists have the links between stock markets and long-run
focused on banks. Walter Bagehot (1873) and growth, but very little empirical evidence.
Joseph A. Schumpeter (1912) emphasize the Levine (1991) and Valerie R. Bencivenga et
critical importance of the banking system in al. (1995) derive models where more liquid
economic growth and highlight circumstances stock markets—markets where it is less ex-
when banks can actively spur innovation and pensive to trade equities—reduce the disin-
future growth by identifying and funding pro- centives to investing in long-duration projects
ductive investments. In contrast, Robert E. because investors can easily sell their stake in
Lucas, Jr. (1988) states that economists the project if they need their savings before
"badly over-stress" the role of the financial the project matures. Enhanced liquidity, there-
system, and Joan Robinson (1952) argues that fore, facilitates investment in longer-ru