financial markets and growth the last five years have witnessed a resurgence of interest in the relationship between financial intermediation and economic growth this issue had been extensively studied nearly two decades earlier by goldsmith 1969 mckinnon 1973 shaw 1973 and others who produced considerable evidence that financial development correlates with growth but their work though insightful lacked analytical foundations in traditional growth theory financial intermediation could be related to the level of the capital stock per worker or to the level of productivity but not to their respective growth rates the latter were ascribed to exogenous technical progress the recent revival of interest in the link between financial development and growth stems mainly from the insights and techniques of endogenous growth models which have shown that there can be self sustaining growth without exogenous technical progress and that the growth rate can be related to preferences technology income distribution and institutional arrangements this provides the theoretical underpinning that early contributors lacked tinancial intermediation can be shown to have not only level effects but also growth effects the resulting models have offered important insights into the effect of financial development on growth and vice versa they have also provided new impetus to empirical research on these issues this paper reviews the ground covered so far on the theoretical and empirical front and points to some still unresolved issues

the finance growth link in latin america this paper analyzes the relationship between financial development and economic growth in latin america with a granger causality test and impulse response functions in a panel vector autoregression var model with annual observations from a sample of 18 countries from 1962 to 2005 it is shown that while economic growth causes financial development financial development does not cause economic growth this finding is robust to different model specifications and different financial indicators interestingly when the sample is divided according to different income levels and institutional quality there is two way causality between financial development and economic growth only for the middle income group and for countries with stronger rule of law and creditor rights the impulse response functions show that a shock to financial development has a positive impact on economic growth only for these subsamples but the net effect of financial development on growth is relatively small during the 1980s most latin american countries suffered from distorted financial systems in this decade the government kept interest rate controls allocated credit arbitrarily and deterred the expansion of security markets and the creation of new financial institutions edwards 1999 nonetheless there has been a significant improvement on the levels of financial development in the region while credit to the private sector as a share of gross domestic product gdp in the latin american region was on average 12 in the 1960s it grew to an average of 29 in the early 2000s 1 even though latin american countries experienced significant financial reforms in the 1990s that promoted financial deregulation and the growth of the stock market financial development indicators show that the region is financially underdeveloped when compared to other emerging regions 2 therefore lack of financial depth may be a barrier to better economic performance in latin america the link between financial development and economic growth is complex because the direction of causation between the two variables may run both ways theoretical and empirical analyses support causality running from financial development to economic growth supply leading hypothesis but there is also evidence that economic growth causes financial

more mortgages lower growth in newly collected data on 46 economies over 1990 2011 we show that financial development since 1990 was mostly due to growth in credit to real estate and other asset markets which has a negative growth coefficient we also distinguish between growth effects of stocks and flows of credit we find positive growth effects for credit flows to nonfinancial business but not for mortgage and other asset market credit flows by accounting for the composition of credit stocks and for the effect of credit flows we explain the insignificant or negative growth effects of financial development in recent times what was true in the 1960s 1970s and 1980s when the field of empirical credit growth studies blossomed is no longer true in the 1990s and 2000s new bank lending is not primarily to nonfinancial business and financial development may no longer be good for growth these trends predate the 2008 crisis they prompt a rethink of the role of banks in the process of economic growth jel e44 o16 o40 c33

indexation of unctad core commodity prices by buffer stocks or export quotas a comparison of the benefits for two developing economies abstract general equilibrium models are used to study the resource allocative and income implications for the ivory coast and kenya of indexation of agricultural commodity prices two indexation methods are investigated i buffer stock transactions and ii export quota entitlements the results suggest that there are efficiency losses associated with the buffer stock option which reduce the gdp gains below that indicated by the pure terms of trade gains efficiency gains associated with the export quota method however result in gdp increases above those indicated by the pure terms of trade gains

finance and the sources of growth at various stages of economic development this article studies the effects of financial development on the sources of growth in different groups of countries recent theoretical work shows that financial development may affect productivity and capital accumulation in different ways in industrial versus developing countries this hypothesis is tested with panel data from 74 countries using gmm dynamic panel techniques results are consistent with the hypothesis finance has a strong positive influence on productivity growth primarily in more developed economies in less developed economies the effect of finance on output growth occurs primarily through capital accumulation jel o4 g1

financial intermediation and endogenous growth an endogenous growth model with multiple assets is developed agents who face random future liquidity needs accumulate capital and a liquid but unproductive asset the effects of introducing financial intermediation into this environment are considered conditions are provided under which the introduction of intermediaries shifts the composition of savings toward capital causing intermediation to be growth promoting in addition intermediaries generally reduce socially unnecessary capital liquidation again tending to promote growth

commodity price instability and economic goal attainment in developing countries abstract this paper reviews the theoretical and empirical micro and macro foundations for the frequent claims that instabilities in international commodity markets have deleterious effects on goal attainment in primary commodity exporting developing countries this review leads to the conclusion that the available evidence does not support these claims the paper concludes with speculation on why such claims are so strong despite the lack of supporting evidence perhaps it is because of measurement problems and perhaps because of small but articulate groups with vested interests in overstating the problem

the economics of development a survey i the subject our definition of the subject will be the use of economic analysis to understand the economies of poor or developing countries this includes in particular how standards of living in the population are determined and how they change over time and further how policy can or should be used in the influence of these processes the definition contains in principle much or most of analytical methods in economics insofar as they can be put to use in the examination of the issues of interest this is as it should be but it poses a problem for a survey in a journal a comprehensive treatment is infeasible so we shall follow a different route the survey will focus on what i take to be the major themes and approaches which characterise the productive aspects of the subject there is therefore no pretence at being exhaustive the purpose is rather to highlight some of the advances many of these have been of real substance there are a number of possible purposes for a survey and it is important to be clear at the outset for whom it is intended what it is and what it is not this survey is addressed to economists and students of economics who know the tools of their trade but not necessarily how they have been applied to and fashioned for the analysis of the economics of developing countries it is a description of the ways in which problems can be productively formulated and approached in terms of examples chosen for their intrinsic importance and interest the vastness of the subject means that we have to be highly selective it does not seek to provide a summary evaluation of the current view of the appropriate response to immediate policy questions it is not a history of thought nor a research manifesto nor an attempt to adjudicate or settle the major debates where they arise naturally from the major purpose some judgements on these subjects will be offered but they do not themselves constitute the primary intent of this survey there are three lines of enquiry or sets of questions which have i suggest been distinctive of the most fruitful work in development economics they will

non linearity between finance and growth abstract we present a simple model which establishes a non linear and possibly non monotonic relationship between financial development and economic growth applying a threshold regression model to king and levine s q j econ 109 1993 83 data set we find evidence consistent with the theoretical model

is the relationship between financial development and economic growth monotonic evidence from a sample of middle income countries summary we revisit the relationship between financial development and economic growth in a panel of 52 middle income countries over the 1980 2008 period using pooled mean group estimations in a dynamic heterogeneous panel setting we show that there is an inverted u shaped relationship between finance and growth in the long run in the short run the relationship is insignificant this suggests that too much finance can exert a negative influence on growth in middle income countries the finding of a non monotonic effect of financial development on growth is confirmed by estimating a threshold model

interest rate reforms financial deepening and economic growth in cameroon an empirical investigation the impact of interest rate reforms on financial deepening and growth in cameroon is examined we employ five proxies of financial deepening against deposit rate a proxy for interest rate reforms the impact of interest rate reforms on financial deepening is sensitive to the proxy used for financial deepening the impact is almost negative and significant for all the indicators except for the ratio of broad money to gross domestic product where it is positive and significant in the first lag this means that financial repression helps improve broad money and hinders the development of the other indicators of financial development in cameroon

financial development and economic growth international evidence the importance of the relationship between financial development and economic growth has been well recognized and emphasized in the field of economic development 1 although recent writings on this subject seem to accept the hypothesis that financial development is crucial for successful economic growth 2 patrick asked the critical question which sector financial or real leads in the dynamic process of economic development patrick identified two possible patterns in the causal relationship between financial development and economic growth in the first growth induces an expansion of the financial system 3 according to this view called demand following the lack of financial growth is a manifestation of the lack of demand for financial services as the real side of the economy develops its demands for various new financial services materialize and these are met rather passively from the financial side in the second pattern the expansion of the financial system precedes the demand for its services channeling scarce resources from small savers to large investors according to relative rates of return the financial sector precedes and induces real growth the deliberate establishment and promotion of financial institutions in many less developed countries ldcs might reflect this belief in the supply leading relationship between the two developments a natural question then concerns the direction of causality between financial development and economic growth patrick asserted that the direction of causality changes over the course of development in his view financial development is able to induce real innovation type investment before sustained modern economic growth gets under way and as the process of real growth occurs the supply leading impetus gradually becomes less important and the demand following financial response

financial development and energy consumption in central and eastern european frontier economies this study examines the impact of financial development on energy consumption in a sample of 9 central and eastern european frontier economies several different measures of financial development are examined including bank related variables and stock market variables the empirical results obtained from dynamic panel demand models show a positive and statistically significant relationship between financial development and energy consumption when financial development is measured using banking variables like deposit money bank assets to gdp financial system deposits to gdp or liquid liabilities to gdp of the three stock market variables investigated only one stock market turnover has a positive and statistically significant impact on energy consumption both short run and long run elasticities are presented the implications of these results for energy policy are discussed

financial development investment and economic growth zhenhui xu in this article i use a multivari ate vector autoregressive var approach to examine the effects of permanent financial development on domestic investment and output in 41 countries between 1960 and 1993 the var approach permits the identification of the long term cumulative effects of financial development on the domestic variables by allowing for dynamic interactions among these variables the results reject the hypothesis that financial development simply follows economic growth and has very little effect on it instead there is strong evidence that financial development is important to growth and that investment is an important channel through which financial development affects growth jel e22 e44 e47 016 057 keywords economic growth financial development investment vector auto regression impulse response i introduction interest in the relationship between financial development and economic growth dates back to early this century and has been growing since the 1980s 1 in the literature three views have emerged concerning the potential importance of finance in economic growth the first sees finance as a critical element of growth schumpeter 19113 goldsmith 19691 mckinnon 19733 shaw 1973 fry 1978 1988 bencivenga and smith 1991 king and levine 1993a 1993b in this view services provided by the financial system are essential for growth and a repressed financial system characterized by price distortion undersaving negative or unstable returns on savings and investment and inefficient allocation of savings among competing users impedes growth 2 as the financial system develops households substitute out of unproductive tangible assets raising the total real supply of credit the quantity and quality of investment and thus the rate of economic growth in addition financial development can pro mote technological innovations and productivity growth king and levine 1993a the second view regards finance as a relatively unimportant factor in growth essentially as the handmaiden to industry and commerce robinson 19521 lucas 1988 stern 1989 in this perspective the lack of financial development is simply a manifestation of the lack of demand for financial services as the real sectors of the economy grow the demand for various financial services rises and will thus be met by the financial sector based on this view financial development simply follows economic growth and has very little effect on it like the first one the third view ascribes effects to finance but focuses on its potential negative impacts on growth van wijnbergen 1983 buffie 1984 economists holding this view contend that financial development can hinder growth by reducing available credit to domestic firms this situation arises from the presence of informal curb markets as the formal financial system develops households are seen to substitute out of curb market loans thus reducing the total real supply of domestic credit the reduction in the supply of credit can lead to a credit crunch thereby lowering investment and slowing production and growth further such a credit crunch can retard economic growth beyond the short term by lowering the steady state capital stock wijnbergen 1983 from these divergent views three testable hypotheses emerge with sharply different policy implications the first view suggests that government policies should be directed toward improving the financial system since financial development has important causal effects on growth the second view implies that government policies toward improving the financial system will have little effect on growth since financial development results from growth and has little impact on it based on the third view there is a potential danger of financial development under certain institutional arrangements government efforts toward financial development can cost an economy its long term growth by reducing total real supply of domestic credit

collective action and transnational terrorism this paper applies modern tools of economic analysis to examine the nature of transnational terrorism and associated collective action concerns that arise in the aftermath of september 11 throughout the paper the strategic interaction between rational terrorists and targeted governments are underscored networked terrorists draw on their collective strengths to exploit a maximum advantage over targeted governments inadequate and uncoordinated responses a wide range of issues are explored including governments deterrence races undersupplied pre emption and suicidal attacks myriad substitutions by terrorists limit government anti terrorism policy effectiveness a host of policy responses are evaluated in light of economic analysis and past econometric evidence

a survey of recent developments in the literature of finance and growth this paper provides a survey of the recent progress in the literature of financial development and economic growth the survey highlights that most empirical studies focus on either testing the role of financial development in stimulating economic growth or examining the direction of causality between these two variables although the positive role of finance on growth has become a stylized fact there are some methodological reservations about the results from these empirical studies several key issues unresolved in the literature are highlighted the paper also points to several directions for future research

the dynamic links between energy consumption economic growth financial development and trade in china fresh evidence from multivariate framework analysis abstract this study investigates the relationship between energy use and economic growth by incorporating financial development international trade and capital as important factors of production function in case of china over the period of 1971 2011 the ardl bounds testing approach to cointegration was applied to examine long run relationship among the series while stationarity properties of the variables was tested by applying structural break test our empirical evidence confirmed long run relationship among the variables the results showed that energy use financial development capital exports imports and international trade have positive impact on economic growth the granger causality analysis revealed that unidirectional causal relationship running from energy use to economic growth financial development and energy use granger cause each other there is bidirectional causality between international trade and energy use the feedback relation exists between financial development and international trade there is also bidirectional causality exists between capital and energy demand financial development and economic growth and international trade and economic growth this paper makes significant contribution in energy economics and opens up new direction for policy makers to explore new and alternative sources of energy which would be helpful in meeting the rising demand of energy due to sustained rate of economic growth

computable general equilibrium models for development policy analysis in ldcs abstract the use of cge models has gained much popularity among policy analysts in ldcs and there is a fast growing body of literature on this area of economics in this survey the advantages of general equilibrium approach over partial equilibrium approach in analysing a wide range of policy issues are highlighted the evolution of cge modelling is discussed and more than 60 cge applications related to different policy issues in ldcs are surveyed this comprehensive survey shows that the cge models have become quite popular analytical tools among policy analysts in ldcs over the last decade or so the debate in the economic profession regarding the value and appropriateness of using cge models for policy analysis is examined in the final section of this paper some of the criticisms levelled at cge models are discussed and it is argued that despite this criticism such models are capable of providing insight into important policy problems

financial development and economic growth convergence or divergence abstract this study tests for convergence in financial development and economic growth by incorporating the interaction between the real and financial sectors into an otherwise traditional test for convergence the results show strong evidence for conditional convergence middle and high income countries conditionally converge to parallel growth paths not only in per capita gdp but also in financial development the mutually reinforcing relationship between financial development and economic growth is stronger in the early stage of economic development and this relationship diminishes as sustained economic growth gets under way as such low income countries with a relatively well developed financial sector are more likely to catch up to their middle and high income counterparts and those with a relatively under developed financial sector are more likely to be trapped in poverty this finding explains the observed great divergence between poor and rich countries another finding is that while human capital is more important to growth in the early stage of economic development economic freedom becomes more important in the later stage

the interplay between preemptive and defensive counterterrorism measures a two stage game a two stage game depiction of counterterrorism is presented emphasizing the interaction between preemptive and defensive measures taken by two commonly targeted countries the preemptor is apt to be the high cost defender with the greater foreign interests a prime target country may also assume the preemptor role the analysis identifies key factors cost comparisons foreign interests targeting risks and domestic terrorism losses that determine counterterrorism allocations market failures associated with preemptive and defensive measures may be jointly ameliorated by a disadvantaged defender nevertheless the subgame perfect equilibrium will still be suboptimal since externalities are not fully internalized

financial repression the new structuralists and stabilization policy in semi industrialized economies abstract this paper examines the short and long run effects of a variety of macroeconomic policies in a simple model where the curb market plays a pivotal role as the marginal supplier of loanable funds it is found that financial liberalization may fail in the short run and contrary to the claims of the new structuralists that the financial market repercussions of devaluation may be favorable in evaluating any policy the time horizon is critical short and long run multipliers may differ in sign in all cases save that of a contraction in the stock of bank credit

the short run impact of fluctuating primary commodity prices on three developing economies columbia ivory coast and kenya abstract computable general equilibrium models are used to study the short run impact of fluctuating primary commodity prices on the economies of columbia ivory coast and kenya the results indicate that these economies are destabilized by primary commodity price fluctuations unless governments act to hold real domestic absorption constant to achieve this however would require foreign exchange reserves in excess of the level normally available to these governments for the purpose of stabilizing domestic economic activity

oil price shocks and policy responses in the post reform chinese economy this study analyses the impact of the 1986 oil price shock on china and the policy options for accommodating the shock a computable general equilibrium model is used to capture the complex interactions in the chinese economy in response to the shock interpreted in the theoretical framework of the booming sector model the results of the model provide insights on both the real and monetary effects of the shock and suggest that a combination of policy instruments such as a cut in real absorption depreciation of the official exchange rate and tight monetary control are required to facilitate adjustment

interaction between economic and financial development this paper presents a model of financial and economic development which assumes the consumption of real resources by the financial sector financial development occurs endogenously as the economy reaches a critical threshold of economic development compared to financial autarky financial intermediaries allocate savings net of their costs of operation to more productive investments whenever the technology financed by intermediaries is more capital intensive than that operated in financial autarky the growth effect of financial development is ambiguous as a result financial development may be unsustainable however when financial development is sustainable the credit market becomes more competitive and more efficient over time and this could eventually contribute to economic growth nonetheless given monopolistic competition in the financial sector the level of entry into the credit market is generally inefficient for instance with diminishing returns to specialisation entrants might be too few at the early stages of economic development and too many later on

the impact of financial development on energy consumption in emerging economies abstract financial development is often cited as a very important driver of economic growth in emerging economies and it is thus likely that financial development affects energy demand this study uses generalized method of moments estimation techniques to examine the impact of financial development on energy consumption in a sample of emerging countries several different measures of financial development are examined using a panel data set on 22 emerging countries covering the period 1990 2006 the empirical results show a positive and statistically significant relationship between financial development and energy consumption when financial development is measured using stock market variables like stock market capitalization to gdp stock market value traded to gdp and stock market turnover the implications of these results for energy policy are discussed

book reviewthe copper industry in the chilean economy manuel lasaga d c healh and co lexington ma 1981 pp xi 198

stabilisation strategies in primary commodity exporting countries a case study of chile abstract a range of stabilisation options are considered to enable the chilean economy to accomodate a reduction in world copper prices these include macroeconomic wage and trade devaluation protection export subsidies policies using a multisectoral model the paper checks the ability of these option to reach employment and current account targets while quantifying their implications for other macroeconomic and structural variables each option is efficient in some degree in meeting one target while violating the other external and internal equilibrium cannot however be simultaneously achieved without cuts in both money wages and real absorption trade policies in themselves are insufficient

financial development and the price of services this article explores the links between financial development and the low relative price of services in less developed countries ldcs the empirical phenomenon of services priced lower in ldcs than in developed countries dcs is now quite thoroughly documented in the data gathered by i kravis a heston and r summers in their important work with the united nations international comparison project following r mckinnon and e shaw recent work emphasizes the importance of financial development in successful economic growth 2 we use a simple three sector model with nontraded goods to trace causal connections between financial policies and the structure of relative prices using data on relative prices from the international comparison project study we show that the extent of financial repression is a significant predictor of the spread of relative service goods prices across nations at differing stages of development as well as among ldcs alone the term financial repression describes a set of policies that aim to extract revenue from the financial system and to use the financial system to funnel resources into specific sectors of the economy 3 governments can extract revenue via forced sales of government debt to the banking system this is usually accomplished through a variety of reserve requirements which in many ldcs exceed 50 of deposits 4 interest rate controls on both loan rates and deposit rates are used to channel credit to politically worthy sectors or to specific projects so that the implicit subsidy does not appear on the government s balance sheet rates of monetary growth inconsistent with sta

collective versus unilateral responses to terrorism global terrorism presents collective action issues for targeted nations proactive measures e g preemptive strikes against terrorists create external benefits for all at risk nations in contrast defensive actions deflect attacks to softer targets thereby giving rise to external benefits to protected foreign residents and external costs to venues abroad coordinated antiterrorism measures are particularly difficult to achieve when many nations must participate and nonparticipants can undo the efforts of others thus freezing terrorists assets or abiding by a no negotiation pledge pose difficult collective action problems these same concerns do not plague decisive action against domestic terrorism

transactions costs technological choice and endogenous growth abstract hicks a theory of economic history clarendon press oxford 1969 argues that an important aspect of industrial development is the adoption of technologies requiring highly illiquid capital investments the adoption of such technologies becomes economically viable in the presence of low cost financial markets that provide liquidity to investors this observation provides a mechanism by which the costs of transacting in financial markets affect the equilibrium choice of technology productive efficiency and by implication growth we analyze how the costs of financial market transactions affect the set of technologies in use and the equilibrium growth rate transactions cost reductions may depending on the capital structure enhance or reduce growth journal of economic literature classification numbers d90 e13 g14

the peer effect in counterterrorist policies existing accounts posit that defensively oriented counterterrorist policies create negative externalities and result in regulatory competition that induces governments to increasingly tighten their policies we argue that rather than causing an unconditional global race to the top spatial dependence in counterterrorist policies is limited to within groups of countries exposed to a similar level of threat from international terrorism countries strongly differ in their propensity to become the target of an international terror attack governments can safely ignore counterterrorist policies enacted by countries outside their peer group but they must pay attention to measures undertaken by their peers we test several predictions derived from our theory in an empirical analysis of counterterrorist regulations in twenty western developed country democracies over the period 2001 to 2008

politics and the suboptimal provision of counterterror i present a model of interactions between voters a government and a terrorist organization the model focuses on a previously unexplored conceptualization of counterterrorism as divided into tactic specific observable and general unobservable tactics when there is divergence between voters and government preferences strategic substitution among different modes of attack by terrorists and agency problems between the voters and government create a situation in which the politically optimal counterterrorism strategy pursued by the government in response to electoral and institutional incentives is quite different from the security maximizing counterterrorism strategy in particular in response to electoral pressure the government allocates resources to observable counterterror in excess of the social optimum this problem is particularly severe when governments put great weight on rent seeking or care less about counterterror than do voters and when terrorists have a large set of tactics from which to choose voters can decrease the magnitude of the agency problem by increasing the benefits of reelection by for example slackening requirements for nonsecurity related public goods i have received valuable comments and advice from bruce bueno de mesquita randy calvert martin cripps james fearon amanda friedenberg robert powell matthew stephenson and barbara walter i thank the weidenbaum center on the economy government and public policy at washington university for financial support

an evaluation of interpol s cooperative based counterterrorism linkages abstractthis paper evaluates the payback from efforts of the international criminal police organization interpol to coordinate proactive counterterrorism measures by its member countries to arrest terrorists and weaken their ability to conduct operations we use interpol arrest data and data on utilization of interpol resources by member countries to compute counterfactual benefit measurements which when matched with costs yield benefit cost ratios the average of these ratios is approximately 200 over 12 alternative counterfactual scenarios so each dollar of interpol counterterrorism spending returns approximately 200 this paper also puts forward a perspective on benefits derived from interpol s stolen and lost travel document database interpol provides an inexpensive proactive measure against transnational terrorism that unlike military operations does not result in backlash attacks

global terrorism deterrence versus pre emption this paper analyses two anti terrorism policies when a targeted nation s people and property are in jeopardy at home and abroad a country s deterrence decision involves both external benefits and costs as the terrorist threat is deflected while its preemption decision typically gives external benefits when the threat is reduced for all potential targets with damages limited to home interests a country will overdeter while for globalized terror a country will underdeter pre emption is usually undersupplied leader follower behaviour is apt to lessen inefficiency for deterrence but worsen inefficiency for pre emption compared with simultaneous choice equilibrium allocations targeted nations can never achieve the proper counterterrorism policy through leadership ce memoire analyse deux politiques anti terrorisme quand la population et la propriete des nations visees sont en danger tant au pays qu a l etranger la decision de dissuasion d un pays entraine des avantages et des couts externes a proportion que la menace terroriste est evitee alors que la decision de preemption produit typiquement des avantages externes quand la menace est reduite pour toutes les cibles potentielles dans le cas de dommages limites aux cibles dans le pays un pays va etre portea sur dissuader alors que dans le cas de terreur globalisee un pays va etre portea sous dissuader la preemption est generalement sous offerte le comportement leader suiveur est susceptible de reduire l inefficacite de la dissuasion mais d empirer l inefficacite de la preemption par rapport a ce qui se passe quand les choix sont simultanes les nations visees ne peuvent jamais en arriver a la politique d anti terrorisme appropriee par la voie du leadership

financial liberalization financial sector development and growth evidence from malaysia abstract the objective of this paper is to examine whether financial development leads to economic growth or vice versa in the small open economy of malaysia using time series data from 1960 to 2001 we conduct cointegration and causality tests to assess the finance growth link by taking the real interest rate and financial repression into account the empirical evidence suggests that financial liberalization through removing the repressionist policies has a favorable effect in stimulating financial sector development financial depth and economic development are positively related but contrary to the conventional findings our results support robinson s view that output growth leads to higher financial depth in the long run

are autocratic rulers also inside traders cross country evidence i introduction this article explores one aspect of the relation between a country s political structure and its regulation of economic activity the central premise is that authoritarian governments operate at least in part for the purpose of enriching their rulers consequently economic regulations are enforced or not so as to benefit the autocrats and their supporters by its nature insider trading is clandestine it is therefore unobservable and its existence must be inferred from indirect evidence my approach is to examine the enforcement of insider trading regulation more than 100 countries have stock markets most also have laws ostensibly designed to protect the general investing public from trading with insiders possessing superior material information regarding the value of particular firms enforcement has occurred however in less than one half of the countries with laws my key hypothesis is that enforcement is less likely in autocracies where government officials and their supporters both control the regulatory and judicial systems and are likely to engage in inside trading put simply they will be disinclined to prosecute themselves data are available that identify countries with stock markets those with insider trading laws and those that enforce them also available are indexes that gauge levels of political freedom economic freedom and corruption for almost all countries these serve as measures of the degree of autocratic rule my statistical analysis indicates a strong correlation between the presence of autocratic government and the absence of insider law enforcement supporting the main hypothesis ii background the economic theories of regulation and public choice presume that government officials are self interested utility maximizers whose behavior is substantially affected by the personal costs and benefits of exercising their political power 1 in autocracies officials generally have significant control over economic activity and are unconstrained by democratic institutions such as political competition elections the rule of law an independent judiciary and a free press opportunities for personal aggrandizement are therefore more readily available including in particular financial enrichment all such behavior amounts to wealth transfers from the population at large and a tax on productive economic activity 2 government regulation of the economy is ostensibly about rectifying market failure for example market entry restrictions are justified by arguments that consumers are protected from incompetent unstable or dishonest firms various other government imposed requirements and permits for the conduct of business are justified under the guise of protecting workers saving the environment nurturing infant industries earning foreign exchange and a variety of other public interest grounds all such regulation however can be viewed alternatively as creating tollgates through which entrepreneurs must pass to legally conduct business 3 unrestrained government officials charged with regulatory enforcement can extract tolls bribes for personal gain given this potential autocratic rulers have an incentive to impose numerous regulations simply to create opportunities to enrich themselves and their supporters 4 if a law or regulation is to serve as a tollgate enforcement must occur the threat of prosecution must be real to create the incentive for market participants to pay bribes autocrats must establish that attempts at circumvention without payment or compliance involve real costs that are greater through their control of government regulatory agencies and the judicial system they can exempt bribe payers while others are subject to prosecution that is enforcement occurs but is selective more generally autocrats might view all types of economic activity within their country as providing opportunities for personal economic gain

credit policy inflation and growth in a financially repressed economy this report analyzes credit policy in an open economy macro model incorporating stylized facts about the financial sector of ldc s absence of security markets existence of a curbmarket these facts are incorporated in the financial sector part of a keynes wicksell growth model it focuses on a transmission channel of monetary policy into the supply side of the economy via the cost of working capital it shows that ignoring this effect when analysing restrictive credit policy leads to underestimates of inflation and overestimation of output and current account improvements it is shown that a credit crunch can be stagflationary in the short run a cut in the real stock of credit is shown to lead to a lower steady state capital stock