Finance-led growth hypothesis for Asia: an insight from new data

Abstract

The quest for the development of financial system has been the major concern of the Asian economies over the years. Using a System Generalized Methods of Moments technique for 44 Asian countries over the period 1980–2017, we evaluate the effect of financial development on economic growth for the entire Asia, sub-regions and groups of the countries by their levels of income. Additionally, we considered the subcomponents of the financial system. The contribution of this study hinges on the use of a comprehensive measure of financial development, and consideration of the heterogeneity of the Asian countries concerning the finance-growth nexus. The findings revealed that financial development spurs economic growth in Asia. Specifically, the development of financial institutions have a greater impact than development of financial markets on growth of upper-middle and high-income countries while the reverse is the case for low and low-middle income countries in the continent.