Economies with better developed financial sectors have a comparative advantage in manufacturing industries. A two-sector model shows the sector with large scale economies profiting more than the other from a well-developed financial sector. In countries with higher levels of financial development, manufactured exports represent a higher share of GDP and of merchandise exports—and those countries have a higher trade balance in manufactured goods. Beck explores a possible link between financial development and trade in manufactures. His theoretical model focuses on the role of financial intermediaries in facilitating large-scale, high-return projects. Results show that economies with better developed financial sectors have a comparative advantage in manufacturing industries. He provides evidence for this hypothesis, first proposed by Kletzer and Bardhan (1987), using a 30-year panel of data for 65 countries. Controlling for country-specific effects and possible reverse causality, he shows that financial development exerts a large causal impact on the level of both exports and the trade balance of manufactured goods.