This paper sheds light on the role of informal economy, defined as all economic activities that are hidden from official authorities for various reasons, in financial development convergence. Using panel data from 156 countries over the period of 1991-2017, we find that financial development (as measured by credit as share of GDP) tends to converge across countries over time, particularly when informality is lower. As the size of informal economy becomes larger, however, financial development convergence weakens, and eventually can turn out to be divergence. This finding suggests that policies addressing informality can help countries with lower levels of financial development catch up with the countries with more developed financial systems. It also has implications for the evolution of cross-country income differences, considering the role of financial development in economic performance. In the last part of the paper, we find evidence consistent with this. The results show that higher informality is also associated with weaker income convergence across countries over time.

本文阐明了非正规经济在金融发展趋同中的作用，非正规经济被定义为由于各种原因而对官方当局隐藏的所有经济活动。利用 1991 年至 2017 年期间 156 个国家的面板数据，我们发现，随着时间的推移，各国的金融发展（以信贷占 GDP 的份额来衡量）往往会趋同，特别是在非正规性较低的情况下。然而，随着非正规经济规模的增大，金融发展趋同性减弱，最终可能演变成分化。这一发现表明，解决非正规性问题的政策可以帮助金融发展水平较低的国家赶上金融体系较发达的国家。考虑到金融发展在经济表现中的作用，它还对跨国收入差异的演变产生影响。在本文的最后一部分，我们找到了与此相一致的证据。结果表明，随着时间的推移，非正规性程度越高，各国收入趋同程度也越弱。