دانلود رایگان ترجمه مقاله محیط مالی و رشد اقتصادی در کشورهای آسیایی انتخاب شده (نشریه الزویر 2003)

محیط مالی و رشد اقتصادی در کشورهای آسیایی انتخاب شده

Financial environment and economic growth in selected Asian countries

Abstract

This paper examines the empirical relationship between financial development and economic growth in nine emerging economies in South-East Asia. The sample period varies across countries but covers at least 25 years.

The main finding is that financial development matters for economic growth and that causality runs from financial structure to economic development. This result indicates that in developing countries a policy of financial reform is likely to improve economic growth.

1 Introduction

This paper examines the importance of financial institutions and intermediation for economic growth, focusing on emerging countries in the political and geographical area known as the Far East, which is South-East Asia. Economic growth is a nation’s increase of welfare over time, commonly measured by Gross National Product (GNP). As a matter of fact, the process of economic growth is uneven and unbalanced while it occurs over an extended period of time. Often, economic growth is measured by the rise in per capita income, but this is a poor reflection of the rise of the wealth of a nation. This encompasses the infrastructure of roads and cities, the maturity of all sorts of institutions and the organization of markets which, together with the associated banking system all may be summarized as the stage of economic development. An important institution is money and therefore the stage of financial development is empirically reflected in the financial structure of a particular country or region. Economic historians and others—Gerschenkron (1962), Goldsmith (1969), Gurley and Shaw (1955), and Rostow (1962)—have studied this process from a broad and often historical perspective. They found empirical evidence for a link between economic growth and the stage of institutional development, financial or otherwise, of particular countries or regions. More recently, economists like Barro (1997), Fischer (1993), King and Levine (1993) and many others have attempted to deepen this analysis empirically by singling out specific indicators to explain rising per capita incomes across countries. This paper is in this spirit and focuses on the role of financial intermediation for economic growth and development. As early as in 1911 Schumpeter (1911) pointed out the role of banks and loans in fostering economic development with the innovative entrepreneurship as the critical element. This approach has evoked criticism. For example Robinson (1953) has questioned this one-way causality, arguing that money and finance follow rather than lead entrepreneurial efforts and economic growth.

This paper attempts to answer the empirical question of whether an increase in monetary sophistication and financial intermediation is associated with long-run economic growth in the emerging economies of South-East Asia. The reason of our focus on these countries is that recently they have shown a remarkable increase in income and wealth and therefore offer a superb opportunity to test the Schumpeterian hypothesis empirically. This is the main focus of this article.

This article is set up as follows. First, we discuss elements of growth theory in view of the role of financial intermediation. Second, we review the scanty empirical literature on financial intermediation and economic growth. Third, we present our own empirical analysis for nine Asian emerging economies. In the final section we draw the conclusions of our empirical exercise and offer a brief reflection on our findings.