New Structural Financial Economics: A Framework for Rethinking the Role of Finance in Serving the Real Economy (Elements in Development Economics)

By: Justin Yifu Lin and Jiajun Xu and Zirong Yang and Yilin Zhang

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Synopsis: This Element proposes an alternative framework for rethinking the role of finance in serving the real economy from the perspective of New Structural Financial Economics. It challenges the conventional wisdom that developing countries should take the financial structure of developed countries as the benchmark and financial structure does not matter in spurring long-run economic development. As a sub-discipline of New Structural Economics, New Structural Financial Economics has three tenets. First, examining the appropriate financial structure should take an economy's factor endowment structure as the starting point of analysis, which identifies its latent comparative advantage. Second, the appropriate financial structure is determined by the financing needs of the prevailing production structure. Third, a government should provide development financing to address market failures, and make tailored financial regulations in line with the characteristics of specific financial arrangements. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.