The finance-growth nexus. Market economies vs. transition countries.

Applying a growth accounting framework and a wide range of static and dynamic panel data estimators on a panel covering 22 market economies and 11 transition countries over 1990-2001, we find a weak and fragile finance-growth link in market economies, but strong financial sectorinduced short-run growth effects in transition countries. The main growth effect hereby runs via the productivity channel. Parametric heterogeneity and financial structure seem to play a more important role than hitherto assumed: The financial sector and its different segments trigger different growth effects in different countries. (author's abstract)