This Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the relationship between financial and real sector development. The different chapters, written by leading contributors in the field, survey research on the importance of financial development for economic growth, the causes and consequences of financial fragility, the historic development of financial systems in several major economies and regions of the world, and the regulatory and supervisory underpinnings of financial sector development.

This pocket edition of the Global Financial Development Database contains 38 indicators of financial development in 205 economies, including measures of financial depth, access, efficiency, and stability of financial institutions and markets.

The Little Data Book on Financial Development 2015/2016 is a pocket edition of the Global Financial Development Database, published as part of the work on the Global Financial Development Report 2015/2016: Long-Term Finance. It contains 39 indicators of financial development in 202 economies, including measures of (1) financial depth, (2) access, (3) efficiency, and (4) stability of financial institutions and markets. Additional variables, historical observations, and links to underlying research are available at www.worldbank.org/financialdevelopment.

This book synthesizes the results of a comprehensive analysis of the status, prospects, and challenges of sustainable financial development in Latin America, as well as the lessons for developed and developing countries.

There is a vast body of literature estimating the impact of financial development on economic growth, inequality, and economic stability. A typical empirical study approximates financial development with either one of two measures of financial depth – the ratio of private credit to GDP or stock market capitalization to GDP. However, these indicators do not take into account the complex multidimensional nature of financial development. The contribution of this paper is to create nine indices that summarize how developed financial institutions and financial markets are in terms of their depth, access, and efficiency. These indices are then aggregated into an overall index of financial development. With the coverage of 183 countries on annual frequency between 1980 and 2013, the database should offer a useful analytical tool for researchers and policy makers.

This pocket edition of the Global Financial Development Database contains 38 indicators of financial development in 205 economies, including measures of financial depth, access, efficiency, and stability of financial institutions and markets. Additional variables, historical observations, and links to underlying research are available at www.worldbank.org/financialdevelopment

This paper reports on developments in the Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) since the last Board review of the FSAP in spring 2003 and discusses staff views of the programs evolution.

"Volumes 2A and 2B of The Handbook of Economic Growth summarize recent advances in theoretical and empirical work while offering new perspectives on a range of growth mechanisms, from the roles played by institutions and organizations to the ways factors beyond capital accumulation and technological change can affect growth. Written by research leaders, the chapters summarize and evaluate recent advances while explaining where further research might be profitable. With analyses that are provocative and controversial because they are so directly relevant to public policy and private decision-making, these two volumes uphold the standard for excellence in applied economics set by Volumes 1A and 1B (2005)"--P. 4 of cover.

This book focuses on the importance for China to correct the present imbalance in the relationship between the financial sector and the real economy. The book looks at China’s current financial system in terms of "extractive" and "inclusive". It asserts that the financial sector is producing huge "siphonic effects" that distort the overall development of the Chinese economy. Like a giant magnet, the financial sector attracts too many innovation factors, such as talents, capital and entrepreneurship away from the real economy and inhibits the development of the latter. Hence, the book argues that China’s financial system must now be thoroughly reformed to become an inclusive financial system, where finance and the rest of the economy can co-exist and develop in support of each other.