Stock Market Development and Financial Intermediaries: Stylized Facts

World stock markets are booming, and emerging stock markets account for a dis-proportionate share of this growth. Yet economists lack a common concept or mea-sure of stock market development. This article collects and compares a broad array of indicators of stock market and financial intermediary development, using data from forty-four developing and industrial countries during the period from 1986 to 1993. The empirical results exhibit wide cross-country differences for each indicator as well as intuitively appealing correlations between various indicators. The article constructs aggregate indexes and analyzes them to document the relationship be-tween the emergence of stock markets and the growth of financial intermediaries. It produces a set of stylized facts that facilitates and stimulates research into the links among stock markets, economic development, and corporate financing decisions. The growth and globalization of emerging stock markets are impressive. In 1994, emerging market capitalization was $1.9 trillion, compared to $0.2 trillion in 1985. Similarly, $39 billion flowed into emerging equity markets from abroad in 1994, compared with $0.1 billion in 1985. ' These developments have at