Fourth, there are pronounced differences in financial markets. In the industrialized countries, financial markets, institutions and instruments are far more developed than in the developing countries. And there are significant differences in the degree of monetization. Consequently, in developing countries, firms rely more on self-financing than their counterparts in industrialized economies, in part because equity markets are underdeveloped as a source of finance for new investments. Borrowing from informal money markets is common. And debt-equity ratios are, as a rule, higher. In industrialized countries, increasingly, there has been a move away from bank lending towards securitization. These differences are, in important part, attributable to the absence or presence of institutions, as also to the depth of financial markets. However, even the form and availability of financial instruments can make a difference. An important function of financial markets is to transfer and absorb risk. Underdeveloped financial markets in developing countries mean that they are less able to absorb shocks than industrialized economies