Contenu du sommaire : 'Finance and Development' AFD-BMZ-EUDN 2013 Conference

First, the paper will examine the policy issues around domestic financial sectors (their size and structure) as well as that of their regulation. Second, it will examine the policy issues of capital account management. This analysis will be framed by the two aims of the financial sector: to fund in an efficient and sustainable way the needs of companies and households (thus supporting inclusive growth) and to avoid damaging crises by supporting financial stability. Though reference will be made to developed economies, the analysis will focus here more on developing and emerging economies.

This paper summarises the main findings of the literature on the relationship between financial and economic development (the known knowns), points to directions for future research (the known unknowns), and then speculates on the third Rumsfeldian category. The known knowns section organises the empirical literature on finance and growth into three strands: (i) the traditional literature which established the link between finance and growth; (ii) the new literature which qualified some of the results of the traditional literature; and (iii) the new-new literature which focuses on alternative measures of financial development and on the dark side of finance. The known unknowns section focuses on causality, on the channels through which finance affects growth, and on the dark side of finance. The unknown unknowns section discusses a topic on which we may know less than what we think we know.

The author is reviewing his own experience dealing with the issue of the regulation of the banking sector in emerging countries, the key features of the banking and financial successive crises, the measures which had to be adopted, and the permanent lessons to be drawn from them for the emerging countries.

This paper examines the implications of capital flight and tax havens for economic development in African economies. Specifically, it investigates the impact of capital flight on domestic investment and the opportunity costs of capital flight in terms of foregone growth. First, econometric analysis is used to assess the impact of capital flight on domestic investment. Second, a simulation exercise is undertaken to estimate the potential gains in terms of growth that could be derived from investing capital flight domestically. The empirical evidence is used to draw some policy implications.