Access to financial services, or rather the lack thereof, is often indiscriminately decried as problem in many developing countries. This paper argues that the "problem of access" should rather be analyzed by identifying different demand and supply constraints. We use the concept of an access possibilities frontier, drawn for a given set of state variables, to distinguish between cases where a financial system settles below the constrained optimum, cases where this constrained optimum is too low, and-in credit services-cases where the observed outcome is excessively high. We distinguish between payment and savings services and fixed intermediation costs, on the one hand, and lending services and different sources of credit risk, on the other hand. We include both supply and demand side frictions that can lead to lower access. The analysis helps identify bankable and banked population, the binding constraint to close the gap between the two, and policies to prudently expand the bankable population. This new conceptual framework can inform the debate on adequate policies to expand access to financial services and can serve as basis for an informed measurement of access.
This paper examines legal theories of international differences in financial development. The law and finance theory stresses that legal traditions differ in terms of (i) their emphasis on the rights of private property owners vis-à-vis the state and (ii) their ability to adapt to changing commercial and financial conditions, so that historically determined legal traditions shape financial development today. Other theories reject the centrality of legal tradition in accounting for crosscountry differences in financial development. The results are broadly consistent with legal theories of financial development, though it is difficult to identify the precise channel through which legal tradition influences financial development.
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work is licensed under a Creative Commons IGO 3.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC-IGO BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO) license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo/legalcode) and may be reproduced with attribution to the IDB and for any noncommercial purpose. No derivative work is allowed.Any dispute related to the use of the works of the IDB that cannot be settled amicably shall be submitted to arbitration pursuant to the UNCITRAL rules. The use of the IDB's name for any purpose other than for attribution, and the use of IDB's logo shall be subject to a separate written license agreement between the IDB and the user and is not authorized as part of this CC-IGO license.Note that link provided above includes additional terms and conditions of the license.The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Inter-American Development Bank, its Board of Directors, or the countries they represent.http://www.iadb.org 2016 1 Abstract * Theory and empirical work have shown that long-term finance is critical for households, firms and government and for the overall development of the economy. The development of efficient and sustainable long-term financial markets, however, depends on macroeconomic stability and an effective institutional framework. Policy initiatives, including tax policy, regulation and competition policies can also improve the availability of long-term finance within these more fundamental constraints. However, country characteristics including size and demographic structure also play an important role. When comparing the provision of long-term finance across countries, it is important to take into account both structural characteristics and long-term policy constraints. A scoreboard for long-term finance in Latin America is suggested with indicators comparing different dimensions of long-term finance. Specifically, the paper suggests several indicators of the depth and inclusiveness of long-term financial markets, to be benchmarked according to country characteristics, and several policy variables, to be included in a scoreboard for long-term finance in Latin America. JEL codes: G10, G18, G21, G22, G23, G28
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