Recent work suggests that financial development is important for economic growth, since financial markets more effectively allocate capital to firms with high value projects. For firms in poorly developed financial markets, implicit borrowing in the form of trade credit may provide an alternative source of funds.We show that industries with higher dependence on trade credit financing exhibit hi...

How does the sovereign credit ratings history provided by independent ratings agencies affect domestic financial sector development and international capital inflows to emerging countries? We address this question utilizing a comprehensive dataset of sovereign credit ratings from Standard and Poor’s from 1995-2003 for a cross-section of 51 emerging markets. Within a panel data estimation framew...

This paper considers an economy in which the financial system provides intermediary services for founded and unfounded assets. Founded assets have real investments as underlying, the unfounded assets have not. Money is used for real and financial transactions. In particular, the money supplied to the financial system may be used to honor the payoff promises of unfounded assets rather than being...

We develop a theory of financial development based on the costs associated with the provision of external finance. These costs are assumed to arise within an environment where informational asymmetries between borrowers and lenders are costly to resolve. When borrowing is limited, producers with access to financial intermediary loans obtain higher returns to investment than other producers. Thi...