Review for "Financial inclusion and migrant remittances in Sub-Saharan Africa: a panel VAR approach"

Author(s):  
Mokbul Ahmad
2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 444-463
Author(s):  
Ebenezer Bugri Anarfo ◽  
Joshua Yindenaba Abor ◽  
Kofi Achampong Osei ◽  
Agyapomaa Gyeke-Dako

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the dynamic link between financial inclusion and financial sector development (FSD) in Sub-Saharan Africa. Design/methodology/approach This paper employs a panel vector autoregressive framework to examine the dynamic link between financial inclusion and FSD in Sub-Saharan Africa. Findings The findings indicate that there is a reverse causality between FSD and financial inclusion in both the Sub-Saharan Africa countries sample and the full sample. It is evident that financial inclusion is a driver of FSD and vice versa. Practical implications The practical implication of this study is that financial inclusion should not only be pursued as a policy objective but it could also be an outcome variable of FSD and vice versa. This implies that African economies and governments in their effort to enhance financial inclusion, FSD can serve as a policy tool. This means that policies aimed at promoting financial inclusion will not impede FSD because the two are complementary. This suggests that we can achieve financial inclusion without sacrificing FSD and vice versa. Originality/value This paper provides first empirical evidence of the link between financial inclusion and FSD from the Sub-Saharan Africa perspective using data sourced from World Development Indicators spanning from 1990 to 2014 for 48 Sub-Saharan African economies and 217 economies in the world for the full sample.


2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (7) ◽  
pp. 809-829
Author(s):  
Ebenezer Bugri Anarfo ◽  
Godfred Amewu ◽  
Gloria Clarissa Dzeha

PurposeThis study examines the causal and dynamic link between financial inclusion and migrant remittances in sub-Saharan Africa.Design/methodology/approachThe study employed a panel vector autoregressive (VAR) framework to examine the dynamic relationship between financial inclusion and migrant remittances in sub-Saharan Africa.FindingsThe findings indicate that there is a reverse causality between financial inclusion and migrant remittances in sub-Saharan Africa.Practical implicationsThe practical implications of these findings are that central governments and economic policymakers in sub-Saharan African countries should formulate and implement policies aimed at fostering financial inclusion if they are to attract more migrant remittances to promote economic growth and financial sector development. This suggests that these two variables are complementary and not contradictory. The results also suggest that central banks and other financial institutions can leverage the positive effect of financial inclusion of financial sector development to enhance the development of the financial sector instead of pursuing financial sector development as a policy objective. This means policies aimed at promoting financial inclusion will not impede or sacrifice migrant remittances, economic growth and financial sector development.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to construct a financial inclusion index to examine the link between financial inclusion and migrant remittances from the sub-Saharan Africa perspectivePeer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-10-2019-0612/


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Folorunsho M. Ajide

Purpose This study aims to investigate the possible relationship between financial inclusion and shadow economy in selected African countries. Design/methodology/approach The study uses panel data estimation technique and Toda and Yamamoto causality approach. The data of selected African counties over a period of 2005–2015 are sourced from World Bank Development Indicators, International Monetary Fund International Financial statistics database and International Country Risk Guide. Findings The results show that financial inclusion reduces the size of shadow economy. The causality results show that there is a unidirectional causality moving from financial inclusion to shadow economy. The results demonstrate that a country with lower level of corruption and higher level of growth can benefit more in reducing the size of shadow economy through financial inclusion. Originality/value This study provides the first evidence of the link between financial inclusion and shadow economy from the Sub-Saharan Africa perspective. The study suggests that financial inclusion may be useful in affecting the size of shadow economy in Africa.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 48
Author(s):  
David Mhlanga

The study intended to investigate the factors that are important in influencing the financial inclusion of smallholder farming households in Sub-Saharan Africa with a specific focus on Zimbabwe. Motivated by the fact that there is an increase in the evidence of the importance of financial inclusion in fighting poverty and the fact that by merely having a bank account, financial inclusion cannot be guaranteed, the study went further to interrogate factors that influence smallholder farmers to have a transaction account, to borrow and to have insurance. Since the dependent variable of financial inclusion had more than two categories, with three unordered categories, transaction account, savings/credit account, and insurance, the multinomial logistic regression was used to estimate the determinants of financial inclusion from these three categories of the dependent variable. The multinomial logit model results, with insurance as the reference category, indicated that the size of the household, transaction costs, gender and agricultural extension service were the factors influencing the demand for a household to open a transaction account. On the other hand, off-farm income and age of the household were the only two factors significantly influencing households to borrow. Therefore, it is imperative for, the government of Zimbabwe to come up with more policies that encourage farmers to participate in the formal financial market as financial inclusion can help to fight poverty and the general developments of societies.   Received: 28 April 2021 / Accepted: 31 August 2021 / Published: 5 November 2021


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