Financial Liberalization and Stock Market Growth in Nepal

Although stock market liberalization is often blamed as causing crises it is concluded that the effects of liberalization on stock market growth is positive. However, there is no professional consensus on the net benefits of financial liberalization. Various measures of stock market development and various statistical analyses indicate that Nepalese stock market is in developing stage. Low market capitalization and lower number of listed companies shows the smaller size of stock market while higher deviation on NEPSE index shows more risk in investment. Apart from this, regression analysis state that only market capitalization has significant impact on growth of domestic product (GDP). The theoretical model mainly predicts that there is a vital role of stock market for overall economic development in both developing as well as developed countries. Stock market works as a vehicle for raising capital for firms. It helps investors to diversify their wealth across variety of assets and the companies enjoy permanent access to capital and rose through equity issue. The growth in the economy only occurs if society invests sufficient amount of capital in firms.