Zsolt Becsi and Ping Wang
Economic Review, Vol. 82, No. 4, 1997
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Poor performance by the financial sector can be costly for society. On the other hand, a healthy banking sector has been thought by some to contribute to the growth of the economy. Recently, though, economists have begun to analyze new elements of the linkages between the financial and real sides of the economy. This article provides an illustrative model that is meant to capture current thinking about the ways in which financial intermediaries affect growth. The model shows how households, firms, and financial intermediaries interact to determine equilibrium growth rates and various interest rates and rate spreads. It is also used to discuss the effects of repressive financial policies such as reserve requirements, interest rate controls, and entry limitations such as barriers to interstate banking.
The authors survey recent empirical literature on growth and financial intermediation, which has shown that different measures of financial development are positively correlated with economic growth rates. They conclude that although there have been some attempts to quantify the effect of financial repression, attempting precise policy recommendations would be premature.
December 1997