1 / 6

Discussion of “How Important Historically Were Financial Systems for Growth in the U.K., U.S., Germany, and Japan?”

Discussion of “How Important Historically Were Financial Systems for Growth in the U.K., U.S., Germany, and Japan?”. Financial Structure and Economic Development Conference, World Bank Philip T. Hoffman, Caltech (pth@hss.caltech.edu).

haruki
Download Presentation

Discussion of “How Important Historically Were Financial Systems for Growth in the U.K., U.S., Germany, and Japan?”

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Discussion of “How Important Historically Were Financial Systems for Growth in the U.K., U.S., Germany, and Japan?” Financial Structure and Economic Development Conference, World Bank Philip T. Hoffman, Caltech (pth@hss.caltech.edu)

  2. Long run overview of relationship between growth and financial development • Examines 4 developed countries • banks, securities markets, governments, internal finance, and alternative sources • over long run • Bottom line • Financial development matters • But different financial structures • Optimal structure may not matter much

  3. Most will agree that financial development matters for growth • Issue: is there an optimal financial structure and does it matter? • Those who say yes would want • control for endowments and history of growth • Results might then fit trend toward large financial markets and banks • But you have to control for political institutions • All 4 cases have secure property rights and fairly open entry

  4. What about those who, like authors, disagree? • There was even more variety than paper suggests • particularly in alternative sources of financing (often matching markets) • These sources hard to get at but important • German and Japanese sections do a good of suggesting as much • Japan: coordinators help small joint stock firms raise money from investors

  5. Another example of alternative finance: mortgages • Left out except in German section • But important for growth • for infrastructure, housing, life cycle • and even initial industrial finance • And big too; circa 1900 mortgages • 38% GDP US; bank loans only 24% GDP • 12-25% or more GDP UK • > 55% NNP Germany • > 20% GDP France

  6. Much mortgage finance came from alternative matching markets • Difficult to estimate but circa 1900 • Financial institutions hold only 36% of mortgages US • Individuals hold 50 to 65% of British mortgages • nearly 80% France • > 32% Germany • Alternative sources big: how do they fit into choice of optimal system?

More Related