Does Financial Structure Matter for Economic Growth? New Evidence from China

Abstract

Following the methodology of Beck et al. in 2001 and Levine in 2002, three relative indicators are constructed to measure China's financial structure at the provincial level and these indicators are applied to explore the current financial structure–economic growth nexus in the Chinese context. The ordinary panel regression model results indicate that different dimensions of financial structure have different growth implications, while the panel threshold regression model results suggest a nonlinear relationship between financial structure and economic growth based on the stage of economic development, the relative importance of the state sector, and the financial structure per se.