The paper provides a comprehensive review of the issues involved in financial development and regulation. For example, there is a theoretical discussion of why it is not likely that removing ceilings on interest rates will result in a greater volume of savings – a battle cry of economics profession in those times as the key policy for raising investment rates. Moreover, there are theoretical reasons why high interest rates can damage macroeconomic stability and investment, as has indeed been seen in actual practice. It provides a clear conceptual contrast between the notions of financial deepening, on the one hand, and increased savings-investment flows, on the other, and the conditions under which financial deepening can improve conditions in the real economy.
The paper also discusses the relative merits of bank-based versus market-based finance. The theoretical issues involved in external financial liberalization are extensively treated, starting from the evidence that international capital flows do not in practice improve the international allocation of savings.