White, Lawrence H.Burns, Scott Andrew2018-10-212018-10-212017https://hdl.handle.net/1920/11138My dissertation is composed of three chapters on the relationship between finance and economic development. Today, most economists agree that financial development plays a critical role in the economic development process. Over the past few decades, the debate has shifted to examining why financial markets seem to play such a fundamental role in the development process. In the first chapter of my dissertation, I show that many of the explanations that have been put forward over the past few decades in the financial development and endogenous growth literature for why financial development spurs economic development were anticipated by scholars in the Austrian school of economics. In particular, I argue that their emphasis on the heterogeneity of capital, the importance of private “capitalist-entrepreneurs” in allocating savings to their highest productive use, and the dangers of government planning and control over the financial sector play an absolutely essential role in understanding why finance matters and what policies ought to be implemented in order to promote financial and hence economic development.156 pagesenCopyright 2017 Scott Andrew BurnsEconomicsEntrepreneurshipFinancial developmentMacroeconomicsMobile MoneyMonetary economicsDissertation