Articles

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We present a model with agency costs where heterogeneous firms raise finance through either bank loans or corporate bonds and where banks are more efficient than the market in resolving informational problems. We document some major long-run differences in corporate finance between the United States and the euro area, and show that our model can explain those differences based on information availability.

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Observers of the formerly communist economies urge firms there to obtain funds from a relatively few sources. They note the problems the firms face: dysfunctional courts, markets, and statutes. Because these firms cannot rely on the courts to discipline managers, they predict that firms will do best if they raise their capital only from a few sources. Firms in Japan at the close of the nineteenth century similarly faced dysfunctional courts, markets, and statutes. Yet the firms that succeeded in Japan were not the ones that took the tack proposed by modern observers.

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What is the relationship between markets and development? It is argued that markets promote growth, and that growth in turn encourages the formation of markets. Two models with endogenous market formation are presented to analyze this issue. The first examines the role that financial markets - banks and stock markets - play in allocating funds to the highest valued use in the economic system. It is shown that intermediation will arise under weak conditions. The second focuses on the role that markets play in supporting specialization in economic activity.

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