In recent years, long-term finance has increasingly attracted interest from policy makers, researchers, and other financial sector stakeholders. Policymakers are often concerned when they see limited use of long-term finance in their countries since limited availability may adversely affect growth and welfare. These concerns were further heightened after the global financial crisis since availability of long-term finance was perceived to be reduced following the crisis, adversely affecting the performance of small and medium enterprises and widening financing gaps for investment.
In fact, ensuring more and better long-term finance has become one of the priorities for the post 2015-Agenda (United Nations 2013). Concerns about the detrimental development effects of a potentially constrained supply of long-term finance have been voiced in the Group of Twenty (G-20) meetings and by the Group of Thirty and ensuring more and better long-term finance is one of the priorities for the post 2015-Agenda (United Nations 2013). This year’s Global Financial Development Report (GFDR), the third in the series, is a synthesis of recent and ongoing research aiming to identify those policies that work to promote long-term finance and those that do not, as well as areas where more evidence is still needed.