This work has the objective to analyze the relationship between financial development and economic growth. The financial system influences the economic growth due to the functions that it plays, such as: a) the mobilization of resources; b) allocation of resources in the space and in the time; c) administration of risk; d) selection and monitoration of companies; and e) production and spreading of information. It was applied technique of quantile regression to analyze these aspects from data of 77 countries. This econometric method allows a more complete mapping of the impact generated from the measures of financial development throughout the conditional distribution of the response variable (measures of economic growth). The estimates allow concluding that: a) there is a positive relation between financial development and economic growth; and b) bigger the quantile (that is, greater the rate of economic growth), greater is the contribution of the financial system for the economic growth.
economic growth; asymmetric information; financial intermediation
