Stock market development and financial deepening in developing countries: some correlation patterns

Dong He and Robert Pardy

No 1084, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: Programs to develop securities markets are now a common feature of World Bank financial sector loans. Stock market development in particular is receiving considerable attention, especially the legal and institutional underpinnings required for successful stock market development. The financial underpinnings needed have received less study. The authors contribute to such a study by exploring the relationship between the degrees of financial depth and stock market development in an economy. Using a simple indicator of stock market development and several indicators of financial depth, and using cross-sectional data from 32 developing countries for 1984-90, they find a strong correlation between the two factors. Time-series data from 19 of these countries (for 1978-90) show similar correlations for most Asian countries, but not for other countries in the sample. Also, the correlations of the Asian data are strongest after the mid-1980s. They test a"threshold hypothesis"that a certain level of financial depth may be necessary to allow stock market development to take off. They find that available data do not support the hypothesis. The results suggest that financial depth is a significant factor in stock market development in most developing countries, but that country specific factors (such as industrial policy and structure, foreign investment controls, and stock market regulatory and operational infrastructure) have an equally strong influence on stock market growth. Case studies of economies in which stock market development has been successful would help elucidate the interplay between these factors.

Keywords: Economic Theory&Research; Financial Economics; Environmental Economics&Policies; Banks&Banking Reform; Statistical&Mathematical Sciences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1993-02-28
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSC ... d/PDF/multi_page.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:wbk:wbrwps:1084

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi ().