Il finanziamento dello sviluppo: Teorie ed evidenza empirica

The relationship between financial development and economic growth has received enormous attention in the economic literature of the last decade. The widely accepted consensus finding is that financial development has a positive effect on growth at either aggregate, or industry or firm levels. This paper aims at providing an overview of the theoretical and empirical findings. Specifically, we focus on the contribution of the Italian economists since the Seventies and point out how the finance-growth nexus was present in their research agenda. Their contributions are reviewed vis-Ã -vis the new researches trying eventually to elucidate what financial structure, banks or markets, is more conducive to the economic growth of Italian and European economies. We argue that the contribution of these Italian economists laid out already clear the main problems tackled by the recent mainstream literature.