Seminar: Financial Sector Structure and Economic Growth - A look at the Nordic Countries w. Marc Rapp

Please register your attendance by sending an e-mail to ccg.int@cbs.dk

Marc Steffen Rapp is a professor at Philipps-Universität Marburg in Germany, where he is affiliated with the Marburg Center for Institutional Economics (MACIE). He has started this project on the financial structure of Nordic countries, which will contribute to the project “Nordic Finance and the Good Society”.

His research interests comprise all aspects of corporate finance related to institutions, regulation, and corporate governance, and his research has been published in leading international journals such as the Journal of Corporate Finance, the International Business Review and Public Finance Analysis.

Project Abstract:

A well-functioning financial sector is generally considered to be a prerequisite for a modern (capitalist) economy. However, in the aftermath of the financial crisis a debate about the future role of the financial sector emerged and many commentators have called into question whether the financial sector actually creates value for the wider society. This research, which is part of a broad research project “Nordic Finance and the Good Society”, aims to contribute to this debate by studying the role of the financial sector structure for economic development of an economy.

Therefore, it proceeds in five steps. First, it provides some reflections on the financial sector and the existing literature studying financial sector structure and its association with economic development. Second, it presents stylized firm-level evidence on capital structure choice and firm behavior and argues that over time equity financing (bank credit) becomes more (less) important for the corporate sector, at least as far as developed economies are concerned. Third, it reports novel country-level evidence on the link between financial sector structure and economic growth suggesting that in developed economies the capital market – and in particular the stock market – is beneficial for economic growth. Fourth, it provides cross-country comparison of various measures of financial sector structure. Thereby, it pays special attention to the Danish financial sector. Finally, it concludes with a discussion of selected challenges for the future direction of the Danish financial sector.