Which Firms Benefit More from Financial Development?

Abstract

We test whether more developed financial systems are better at tackling asymmetric information proxied by firm age and size. Comparing the growth effect of financial development (FD) across firms of different type, we find that FD disproportionately fosters the growth of young companies, while there is relatively little evidence of differences in the effect across firms of different size. The disproportionate gains from FD for youngest firms are concentrated among firms with lower shares of equity capital on total assets as these firms are in more need of external financing.

Keywords: Corporate growth, Financial development, Information Asymmetry

JEL Classification: F36, G15, G21, O16, O52