A new database on financial development and structure

Thorsten Beck, Asli Demirguc-Kunt and Ross Levine ()

No 2146, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: The authors introduce a new database of indicators of financial development and structure across countries and over time. This database is unique in that it unites a variety of indicators that measure the size, activity, and efficiency of financial intermediaries and markets. It improves on previous efforts by presenting data on the public share of commercial banks, by introducing indicators of the size and activity of non bank financial institutions, and by presenting measures of the size of bond and primary equity markets. The compiled data permit the construction of financial structure indicators to measure whether, for example, a country's banks are larger, more active, and more efficient than its stock markets. These indicators can then be used to investigate the empirical link between the legal, regulatory, and policy environment and indicators of financial structure. They can also be used to analyze the implications of financial structure for economic growth. The authors describe the sources and construction of, and the intuition behind, different indicators and present descriptive statistics.

Keywords: Banks&Banking Reform; Financial Economics; Financial Intermediation; Governance Indicators; Economic Theory&Research (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999-07-31
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (328)

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