Has financial liberalization improved the efficiency with which investment funds are allocated to competing uses? In this paper, we address this question using firm level panel data from twelve developing countries. We develop a summary index of the efficiency of investment allocation that measures whether, and to which extent, investment funds are going to firms with a higher marginal return to capital. We then examine the relationship between this index and various measures of financial liberalization. The results suggest that in the majority of cases financial reform has lead to an increase in the efficiency with which investment funds are allocated.

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. The views and interpretations in this document are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Inter-American Development Bank, or to any individual acting on its behalf. Terms of use: Documents inThe Research Department (RES) produces the Latin American Economic Policies Newsletter, as well as working papers and books, on diverse economic issues.To obtain a complete list of RES publications, and read or download them please visit our web site at: http://www.iadb.org/res 2 Abstract 1 Institutional and legal differences between countries increase entry costs and reduce the ability of banks to expand abroad. We use bilateral foreign banking data for 176 countries to estimate a gravity model in which bilateral cross-border banking activity is explained, in addition to standard variables, by legal and institutional differences. We find that foreign banking is negatively affected by absolute differences in the legal setup and in basic institutions between source and host countries. Differences in the legal origin, for example, reduce bilateral participation in the banking system by nearly 11 percent. Additionally we do not find strong evidence suggesting asymmetries in adapting to "better" or "worse" institutional/legal environments.

Has financial liberalization improved the efficiency with which investment funds are allocated to competing uses? In this paper, we address this question using firm level panel data from twelve developing countries. We develop a summary index of the efficiency of investment allocation that measures whether, and to which extent, investment funds are going to firms with a higher marginal return to capital. We then examine the relationship between this index and various measures of financial liberalization. The results suggest that in the majority of cases financial reform has lead to an increase in the efficiency with which investment funds are allocated.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. The views and interpretations in this document are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Inter-American Development Bank, or to any individual acting on its behalf. This paper may be freely reproduced provided credit is given to the Research Department, InterAmerican Development Bank. Terms of use: Documents inThe Research Department (RES) produces a quarterly newsletter, IDEA (Ideas for Development in the Americas), as well as working papers and books on diverse economic issues. To obtain a complete list of RES publications, and read or download them please visit our web site at: http://www.iadb.org/res 2 Abstract 1We suggest that foreign banks may represent a trade-off for their developing country hosts. A portfolio model is developed to show that a more diversified international bank may be one of lower, overall risk and less susceptible to funding shocks but may react more to shocks that affect expected returns in a particular host country. Foreign banks have become particularly important in Latin America where we find strong support for these theoretical predictions using a dataset of individual Latin American banks in 11 countries. Moreover, we find no significant difference between the size of the response of foreign banks to a negative liquidity shock and a positive opportunity shock: in both cases the market share of foreign banks in credit increases.