Finance: Economic Lifeblood or Toxin?

Marco Pagano

CSEF Working Papers from Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy

Abstract: In the past two decades, academic research has produced massive evidence of the beneficial role of financial development for growth and the allocation of investment. Our current vision, however, is dominated by instances of dysfunctional behavior of financial markets associated with acute and widespread crises. This raises the issue of when and why finance ceases to be the “lifeblood” and turns into a “toxin” for real economic activity. This paper is a first step towards an answer. Its thesis is that the metamorphosis occurs when finance becomes “too large” relative to the underlying economy. At this point finance stops contributing to economic growth and comes to threaten the solvency of banks and systemic stability. A related question is why regulation is not designed so as to prevent the financial industry from growing above this threshold. I argue that the answer lies largely in the symbiosis between politicians and the finance industry.

Keywords: Financial development; financial crisis; risk taking; market failure; political economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G01 G18 G21 G28 H81 O16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-12-23
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hme, nep-hpe and nep-pke
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Published in The Social Value of the Financial Sector: Too Big to Fail or Just too Big?, V. Acharya, T. Beck, D Evanoff, GG. Kaufman and R. Portes (eds), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd, New Jersey, 2013, pp. 109-146.

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Related works:
Chapter: Finance: Economic Lifeblood or Toxin? (2013)
Working Paper: Finance - Economic Lifeblood or Toxin? (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sef:csefwp:326

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