Financial Development and Industrial Capital Accumulation

In a decentralized-decisions economy under uncertainty, the financial system can be seen as the complex of institutions, infrastructure, and instruments that the society adopts to minimize the costs of transacting promises under agents’ incomplete trust and limited information. Building on a microeconomic, general equilibrium model that portrays such fundamental function of finance, this study analytically shows that, in line with recent empirical evidence, the development of financial infrastructure stimulates larger and more efficient capital industrial accumulation. The study also shows that economies with more developed financial infrastructure can better absorb exogenous...