TY  - JOUR
AU  - Levine,Ross
TI  - Bank-Based or Market-Based Financial Systems: Which is Better?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 9138
PY  - 2002
Y2  - September 2002
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9138
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9138.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Ross Levine
Department of Economics
Brown University
64 Waterman Street
Providence, RI 02912
Tel: 401/863-2170
E-Mail: ross_levine@brown.edu
AB  - For over a century, economists and policy makers have debated the relative merits of bank-based versus market-based financial systems. Recent research, however, argues that classifying countries as bank-based or market is not a very fruitful way to distinguish financial systems. This paper represents the first broad, cross-country examination of which view of financial structure is more consistent with the data. The results indicate that although overall financial development is robustly linked with economic growth, there is no support for either the bank-based or market-based view.
ER  -