← Search

Empirical Studies of Financial Innovation: Lots of Talk, Little Action?

W. Scott Frame¹; Lawrence J. White²

¹ Research Department, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta · ² Stern School of Business, New York University

This paper reviews the extant empirical studies of financial innovation. Adopting broad criteria and spanning a long time horizon, we found surprisingly few studies (39), with most (23) having been conducted since 1998. Especially striking is that only two studies test hypotheses advanced in many descriptive articles as to the economic/environmental conditions that encourage financial innovation. We offer conjectures as to why empirical studies of financial innovation are comparatively rare, including as a culprit the absence of accessible data. We urge financial regulators to undertake more surveys of financial innovation and to make the resulting data available to researchers.

DOI

10.1257/002205104773558065

Volume

42 (1)

Pages

116-144

Language

en

Export

BibTeX

Sources

crossref openalex