توسعه مالی و اوراق بهادار خانگی - شواهدی از اسپانیا، انگلستان و ایالات متحده آمریکا

We examine the impact of financial development on the composition of household portfolios in Spain, the U.K. and the U.S., three countries whose financial systems underwent profound changes over the past two decades and for which relevant data exist for sufficiently long time periods. We find a ‘division of labour’ between the indices measuring financial development and asset returns, the first affecting mainly the long-run dynamics of household portfolios and the second the short-run dynamics; both, however, in an economically reasonable way. Among the notable results pertaining to long-run dynamics, more competitive financial intermediaries are associated with a higher share of currency and deposits and a lower share of equity. For the short-run dynamics, the most important driver is stock market returns.

The extensive and rapidly growing literature on financial development has so far addressed several issues that are of great interest to academics, policy makers and market participants. Prominent among them is the relationship between financial development, on the one hand, and asset returns, economic growth and financial system structure, on the other. Indicatively, Dellas and Hess (2005) find that a deeper and more liquid banking system is associated with lower stock market volatility and greater synchronization between domestic and world stock market returns. Also, the voluminous research surveyed in Levine (2004) supports the view that causality runs from financial development to economic growth. Pertaining to financial system structure, Rajan and Zingales (2003) and Allen and Santomero (2001), among others, document that over the past two decades – when the financial systems underwent profound changes all over the world – the role of traditional bank intermediation decreased, while that of capital markets increased. In addition, other forms of intermediaries, such as, pension funds and mutual funds, grew significantly, responding to a shift towards institutionalized management of savings.

Perhaps, the most striking aspect of these results is that the sample countries share some characteristics, despite that each country's experience is unique – as reflected not only on the different liberalization path they followed but also on the principal components summarizing the evolution of their financial intermediaries and on the different financial institutions each country has. To begin with, the financial development indices affect mostly the long-run dynamics of household portfolios, while asset returns the short-run dynamics. Also, developments in one segment of the financial system affect all asset shares in an economically reasonable, but not obvious, way. Last, but not least, the most important driver of short-run dynamics appears to be stock market returns.