1、 外文翻译 Financial Development and Economic Growth: Views and Agenda Material Source: Journal of Economic Literature Author: ROSS LEVINE The Functions of the Financial System A. Facilitating Risk Amelioration In the presence of specific information and transaction costs, financial markets and instituti
2、ons may arise to ease the trading, hedging, and pooling of risk. This subsection considers two types of risk: liquidity and idiosyncratic risk. Liquidity is the ease and speed with which agents can convert assets into purchasing power at agreed prices. Thus, real estate is typically less liquid than
3、 equities, and equities in the United States are typically more liquid than those traded on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Liquidity risk arises due to the uncertainties associated with converting assets into a medium of exchange. Informational asymmetries and transaction costs may inhibit liquidity a
4、nd intensify liquidity risk. These frictions create incentives for the emergence of financial markets and institutions that augment liquidity. Liquid capital markets, therefore, are markets where it is relatively inexpensive to trade financial instruments and where there is little uncertainty about
5、the timing and settlement of those trades. Theory, however, suggests that enhanced liquidity has an ambiguous affect on saving rates and economic growth. In most models, greater liquidity (a) increases investment returns and (b) lowers uncertainty. Higher returns ambiguously affect saving rates due
6、to well-known income and substitution effects. Further, lower uncertainty ambiguously affects savings rates (David Levhari and T. N. Srinivasan 1969). Thus, saving rates may rise or fall as liquidity rises. Indeed, in a model with physical capital externalities, saving rates could fall enough, so th
7、at growth actually decelerates with greater liquidity (Tullio Jappelli and Marco Pagano 1994). Besides reducing liquidity risk, financial systems may also mitigate the risks associated with individual projects, firms, industries, regions, countries, etc. Banks, mutual funds, and securities markets a
8、ll provide vehicles for trading, pooling, and diversifying risk. The financial systems ability to provide risk diversification services can affect long-run economic growth by altering resource allocation and the saving rates. The basic intuition is straightforward. While savers generally do not like
9、 risk, high-return projects tend to be riskier than low-return projects. Thus, financial markets that ease risk diversification tend to induce a portfolio shift toward projects with higher expected returns (Gilles Saint-Paul 1992; Michael Deverettx and Gregor Smith 1994; and Maurice Obstfeld 1994).
10、Greater risk sharing and more efficient capital allocation, however, have theoretically ambiguous effects on saving rates as noted above. The savings rate could fall enough so that, when coupled with an externality-based or linear growth model, overall economic growth falls. With externalities, grow
11、th could fall sufficiently so that overall welfare falls with greater risk diversification. Besides the link between risk diversification and capital accumulation, risk diversification can also affect technological change. Agents are continuously trying to make technological advances to gain a profi
12、table market niche. Besides yielding profits to the innovator, successful innovation accelerates technological change. Engaging in innovation is risky, however. The ability to hold a diversified portfolio of innovative projects reduces risk and promotes Investment in growth-enhancing innovative acti
13、vities (with sufficiently risk averse agents). Thus, financial systems that ease risk diversification can accelerate technological change and economic growth (Robert King and Levine 1993c). B. Facilitating Exchange Besides easing savings mobilization and thereby expanding the of set production techn
14、ologies available to an economy, financial arrangements that lower transaction costs can promote specialization, technological innovation, and growth. The links between facilitating transactions, specialization, innovation, and economic growth were core elements of Adam Smiths (1776) Wealth of Natio
15、ns. Smith (1776, p, 7) argued that division of labor-specialization-is the principal factor underlying productivity improvements. With greater specialization, workers are more likely to invent better machines or production processes. The critical issue for our purposes is that the financial system c
16、an promote specialization. Adam Smith argued that lower transaction costs would permit greater specialization because specialization requires more transactions than an autarkic environment. Smith phrased his argument about the lowering of transaction costs and technological innovation in terms of th
17、e advantages of money over barter (pp. 26-27). Information costs, however, may also motivate the emergence of money. Because it is costly to evaluate the attributes of goods, barter exchange is very costly. Thus, an easily recognizable medium of exchange may arise to facilitate exchange (King and Ch
18、arles Plosser 1986; and Williamson and Randall Wright 1994). The drop in transaction and information costs is not necessarily a one-time fall when economies move to money, however. For example, in the 1800s, “it was primarily the development of institutions that facilitated the exchange of technolog
19、y in the market that enabled creative individuals to specialize in and become more productive at invention“(Lamoreaux and Sokoloff 1996, p. 17).Thus, transaction and information costs may continue to fall through a variety of mechanisms, so that financial and institutional development continually bo
20、ost specialization and innovation via the same channels illuminated over 200 years ago by Adam Smith. Financial Structure and Economic Growth There exists considerable debate, with sparse evidence and insufficient theory, about the relationship between financial structure and economic growth. After
21、briefly outlining the major examples used in discussions of financial structure, I describe the major analytical limitations impeding research on financial structure and economic growth. The classic controversy involves the comparison between Germany and the United Kingdom. Starting early in this ce
22、ntury, economists argued that differences in the financial structure of the two countries help explain Germanys more rapid economic growth rate during the latter half of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century (Alexander Gerschenkron 1962). The premise is as follows. Germanys bank-
23、based financial system, where banks have close ties to industry, reduces the costs of acquiring information about firms, This makes it easier for the financial system to identify good investments, exert corporate control, and mobilize savings for promising investments than in Englands more securitie
24、s market oriented financial system, where the ties between banks and industry are less intimate. Indeed, quite a bit of evidence suggests that German bankers were more closely tied to industry than British bankers. Unlike England, nearly all German bankers started as merchants. The evolution from en
25、trepreneur to banker may explain the comparatively close bonds between bankers and industrialists. There are severe analytical problems with linking financial structure to economic performance. First, existing research on financial structure does not quantify the structure of financial systems or ho
26、w well different financial systems function overall. For example, German bankers may have been more closely connected to industrialists than their British counterparts, but less capable at providing liquidity and facilitating transactions. Similarly, while Japanese Keiretsu may lower information acq
27、uisition costs between banks and firms, this does not necessarily imply that the Japanese financial system provides greater risk sharing mechanisms or more accurately spot promising new lines of business. Furthermore, while Japan is sometimes viewed as a bank-based system, it has one of the best dev
28、eloped stock markets in the world (Demirguc-Kunt and Levine 1996a). Thus, the lack of quantitative measures of financial structure and the functioning of financial system make it difficult to compare financial structures. Second, given the array of factors influencing growth in Germany, Japan, the U
29、nited Kingdom, and the United States, it is analytically difficult-and perhaps reckless-to attribute differences in growth rates to differences in the financial sector. Moreover, over the post World War II period, the devastated Axis powers may simply have been converging to the income levels of the
30、 United States, such that observed growth rate differentials have little to do with financial structure. Thus, before linking financial structure with economic growth, researchers need to control for other factors influencing long-run growth. A third factor that complicates the analysis of financial
31、 structure and economic growth is more fundamental. The current debate focuses on bank-based systems versus market-based systems. Some aggregate and firm level evidence, however, suggest that this dichotomy is inappropriate. The data indicate that both stock market liquidity-as measured by stock tra
32、ding relative to GDP and market capitalization-and the level of banking development-as measured by bank credits to private firms divided by GDP predict economic growth over subsequent decades Levine and Zervos 1996). Thus, it is not banks or stock markets; bank and stock market development indicator
33、s both predict economic growth. Perhaps, the debate should not focus on bank-based versus market-based systems because these two components of the financial system enter the growth regression significantly and predict future economic growth. It may be that stock markets provide a different bundle of
34、 financial functions from those provided by financial intermediaries. For example, stock markets may primarily offer vehicles for trading risk and boosting liquidity. In contrast, banks may focus on ameliorating information acquisition costs and enhancing corporate governance of major corporations.
35、This is merely a conjecture, however. There are important overlaps between the services provided by banks and stock markets. As noted above, well-functioning stock markets may ameliorate information acquisition costs, and banks may provide instruments for diversifying risk and enhancing liquidity. T
36、hus, to understand the relationship between financial structure and economic growth, we need theories of the simultaneous emergence of stock markets and banks and we need empirical proxies of the functions performed by the different components of financial systems. A fourth factor limiting our under
37、standing of the links between financial structure and economic growth is that researchers have focused on a few industrialized countries due to data limitations. The United States, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom have basically the same standard of living. Averaged over a sufficiently long ti
38、me period, they must also have very similar growth rates. Thus, comparisons of financial structure and economic development using only these countries will tend to suggest that financial structure is unrelated to the level and growth rate of economic development. Future studies will need to incorpor
39、ate a more diverse selection of countries to have even a chance of identifying patterns between financial structure and economic development. Finally, there are important interactions between stock markets and banks during economic development that have not been the focus of bank-based versus market
40、-based comparisons. As noted, greater stock market liquidity is associated with faster rates of capital formation. Nonetheless, new equity sales do not finance much of this new investment (Cohn Mayer 1988), though important differences exist across countries (AjitSingh and Javed Hamid 1992). Most ne
41、w corporate investment is financed by retained earnings and debt. This raises a quandary: stock market liquidity is positively associated with investment, but equity sales do not finance much of this investment. This quandary is confirmed by firm-level studies. In relatively poor countries, enhanced
42、 stock market liquidity actually tends to boost corporate debt-equity ratios; stock market liquidity does not induce a substitution out of debt and into equity finance (Demirgu-Kunt and Maksimovic 1996a).However, for industrialized countries, debt-equity ratios fall as stock market liquidity rises;
43、stock market liquidity induces a substitution out of debt finance. The evidence suggests complex interactions between the functioning of stock markets and corporate decisions to borrow from banks that depend on the overall level of economic development. Thus, we need considerably more research into
44、the links among stock markets, banks, and corporate financing decisions to understand the relationship between financial structure and economic growth. Conclusion Theory and evidence make it difficult to conclude that the financial system merely-and automatically-responds to industrialization and ec
45、onomic activity, or that financial development is an inconsequential addendum to the process of economic growth. I believe that we will not have a sufficient understanding of long-run economic growth until we understand the evolution and functioning of financial systems. This conclusion about financ
46、ial development and long-run growth has an important corollary: although financial panics and recessions are critical issues, the finance-growth link goes beyond the relationship between finance and shorter-term fluctuations. Undoubtedly, the financial system is shaped by nonfinancial developments.
47、Changes in telecommunications, computers, nonfinancial sector policies, institutions, and economic growth itself influence the quality of financial services and the structure of the financial system. Technological improvements lower transaction costs and affect financial arrangements (Merton 1992).
48、Monetary and fiscal policies affect the taxation of financial Intermediaries and the provision of financial services (Bencivenga and B. Smith 1992; Roubini and Sala-i-Martin 1995). Legal systems affect financial systems (LaPorta et al. 1996), and political changes and national institutions criticall
49、y influence financial development (Haber 1991, 1996). Furthermore, economic growth alters the willingness of savers and investors to pay the costs associated with participating in the financial system (Greenwood and Jovanovic 1990). Much more information about the determinants and implications of financial structure will move us closer to a comprehensive view of financial development and economic growth. 金融发展与经济增长：观点与目的 标题：金融发展与经济增长：观点与目 的 资料来源 : 经济学文献杂志 作者： 罗斯莱文 （ 1）金融系统的作用 第一，促进分散风险。 在具体信息和交易费用面前，金融市场和机构会逐渐降低股票交易、对冲买卖和联营的风险。 这一部分人认为有两种类型的风险：资产的流动性和特殊
