文档介绍：Japan and the World Economy
15 (2003) 447–458
Financial systems, risk management, and
entrepreneurship: historical perspectives
Richard Sylla*
Department of Economics, Stern School of Business, New York University,
44 W. 4th Street, New York, NY 10012, USA
Received 15 January 2003; accepted 15 April 2003
Abstract
Economic historians find that the most essful economies of history tend to be ones that early in
their modern histories developed sophisticated financial systems that subsequently sustained their
development and growth. Financial economists are finding the same association of financial devel-
opment and growth across a wider range of countries and levels of economic development in recent
decades. This essay argues that more sophisticated financial systems not only mobilize more capital
and allocate capital more efficiently than do less developed systems. By offering more sophisticated
methods of managing and reducing risks than primitive financial systems, modern financial systems,
perhaps paradoxically, also promote higher levels of risk taking and entrepreneurship.
# 2003 Elsevier Science . All rights reserved.
JEL classification: G20; M13; N20; O16
Keywords: Financial systems; Risk management; Entrepreneurship; Economic growth
1. Introduction
Evidence building at a rapid rate indicates that financial development plays a leading
role in economic growth and in accounting for the relative performance of the world’s
national economies. The evidence challenges older interpretations, still held to by some,
that financial development is mostly a passive response to the needs of economies that
began to grow more rapidly for other reasons, such as the exploitation of international
trading opportunities—the globalization of trade—and technological breakthroughs in
production—the industrial revolution. Instead of being a passive response to changes
arising in non-financial sectors of economies, financial development now appears to an
active, ins