In this paper, the relative impact of bank-based and market-based financial development on economic growth in Kenya has been examined during the period from 1980 to 2012. Although extensive work has been done in an attempt to establish the nature of the relationship between financial development and economic growth, studies examining the impact of bank-based financial development on economic growth, on the one hand, and market-based financial development and economic growth, on the other hand, are scant. Even where such studies have been undertaken, the empirical findings have been largely inconclusive. The current study uses the newly developed ARDL-bounds testing approach to examine this linkage – an approach which has best small sample size properties. Furthermore, the study employs the method of means-removed average to construct both bank-based and market-based financial development indices. The empirical results of this study show that there is a positive long- and short-run relationship between market-based financial development and economic growth in Kenya. However, the study failed to find any significant impact of bank-based financial development on economic growth, irrespective of whether the regression analysis is conducted in the short run or in the long run. The findings of this study, therefore, lend more support to pro-market-based financial development policies in Kenya in order to foster economic growth and development. Policymakers in Kenya are, therefore, recommended to pursue policies that enhance the stock market since it has been established that it is the market-based financial sector that has an impact on economic growth. However, it is also prudent for policy makers to assess the credit allocation and identify possible bottlenecks that could be hindering the benefits of a banking sector from filtering to the real sector.