توسعه مالی و رشد اقتصادی در امریکا لاتین: آیا بیان شومپیتر درست است؟

In this paper we investigate the role of financial development, or more widespread access to finance, in generating economic growth in four Latin American countries between 1980 and 2007. The results, based on panel time-series data and analysis, confirm the Schumpeterian prediction which suggests that finance authorises the entrepreneur to invest in productive activities, and therefore to promote economic growth. Furthermore, given the characteristics of the sample of countries chosen, we highlight not only the importance of a more open, competitive and therefore active financial sector in channelling financial resources to entrepreneurs, but also the relevance of macroeconomic stability (in terms of low inflation rates), and all the institutional framework that it encompasses (central bank independence and fiscal responsibility laws), structural reforms which were implemented in the 1990s, as necessary pre-conditions for financial development, and consequently for sustained growth and prosperity in the region.

Latin America has been know for a particular tendency to display erratic growth rates, combined with political transitions and poor macroeconomic performance (in terms of high inflation rates), in particular in the 1980s and first half of the 1990s. Some of the countries in the region presenting these, destructive, characteristics include Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Peru. Re-democratisation came in the 1980s and macroeconomic reforms and stabilisation in the 1990s (in the spirit of Alesina & Drazen, 1991), and coincidentally enough, growth rates and financial development became consistently positive some time after these political transitions had passed and economic stabilisation had taken root in the region.

We investigated in this paper the role of financial development, or more widespread access to finance, in promoting economic growth in a panel of four Latin American countries which experienced political transitions in the 1980s and severe macroeconomic conditions in the 1980s and early 1990s. The results, based on panel time-series analysis, suggest that, once we take into account the role of macroeconomic performance, financial development indeed played a significant role in generating economic activity, innovation and consequently economic growth in the region, or alternatively stated: Schumpeter is right after all! Nevertheless, it must be pointed out that the positive effects of financial development on growth could be even larger had those countries not allowed those hyperinflationary episodes to happen in the first place. However, those countries simply did not have the right institutional framework in place in the 1980s (central bank independence, fiscal responsibility laws and financial de-regulation were implemented only towards the end of the 1990s).