In the later stages of development, human capital became the prime engine of economic growth and large inequalities, by aggravating the negative impact of credit constraints on human capital accumulation, become detrimental to growth. Rajan (2010), for instance, argues that rising income inequality in the United States led to a boom in lending to the poor to buttress their consumption. On the other hand, preliminary work by Atkinson and Morelli (2011) using a large country sample over a long time span does not find a consistent cross-country pattern of high or rising inequality prior to banking crises.