A Traffic-Jam Theory of Growth

Daria Finocchiaro and Philippe Weil

No 17304, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: A growing empirical literature documents a non-monotonic relationship between finance and growth. We investigate this finding in a Schumpeterian endogenous-growth model with search frictions and congestion effects in credit and innovation markets. Financial development eases the financing of innovation but exacerbates congestion effects in R&D. Conversely, policies that promote R&D aggravate financial bottlenecks. Once general equilibrium feedback effects are taken into account, the interplay between the two congestion frictions generates a non-linear relationship between finance and productivity growth. We show that, for a calibration chosen to mimic the actual US economy, the interplay between credit and innovation frictions results in a negative impact of finance on growth. This impact is however quantitatively small – consistent with the observation that, in the last century, most developed economies have experienced a widespread expansion of the financial sector yet almost constant, or slowly declining, growth rates of GDP (save for financial crises, pandemics or wars).

Keywords: Growth; Finance; Search frictions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E40 E50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-05
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP17304 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Working Paper: A Traffic-Jam Theory of Growth (2024)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:17304

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP17304

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().