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on Community banking and credit unions |
| By: | Sanoh Yusuf (Graduate School of Economics, The University of Osaka) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the causal impact of financial inclusion on household welfare in West Africa by analyzing consumption diversification using Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) data from the World Bank on 51, 851 households across seven countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU). Instrumental Variables (IV) and Propensity Score Matching (PSM) were used for causal inference. The findings show that financial inclusion operates through distinct channels: it promotes food expenditure concentration via quality upgrading, expands non-food consumption into areas such as education and health, and induces structural reallocation from food to non-food budgets, with effects varying by financial modality. The results demonstrate that formal banking and microfinance drive long-term structural change. In contrast, mobile banking primarily facilitates short-term liquidity, offering targeted policy insights for enhancing financial inclusion strategies in the region. |
| Keywords: | Financial Inclusion, Theil entropy, consumption diversification, welfare, West Africa. |
| JEL: | G21 O16 I32 D12 O55 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osk:wpaper:2610 |
| By: | Bernardo X. Fernández-Tellería (British Embassy in Bolivia); Leticia Victoria Castedo Michel (University of Padova, Italia) |
| Abstract: | Sustainable finance is consistently gaining relevance in financial markets across the world including Bolivia, a coun-try where more than seventy percent of the population live in urban areas. Even though municipalities should be a top destination of sustainable funding to address the country’s most urgent development challenges, they have struggled to access the local financial market mainly due to their highly heterogeneous financial strength. To address this, the paper proposes a novel financing scheme that combines the notion of horizontal fiscal equalization – a redistributive approach to transfer resources from richer to poorer jurisdictions to mitigate size and development differences – and the principles of sustainable finance to face major development challenges associated with poverty, inequality and climate change vulnerability. To illustrate this, the paper estimates and characterizes the rela-tive financial strength of Bolivia’s ten main municipalities and shows that three well-known investment vehicles amenable to the notion of horizontal fiscal equalization can be effectively used for channeling much needed sustainable funding to local governments. In effect, the proposed financing scheme could increase financial inclusion amongst Bolivian municipalities and channel much needed funding to significantly enhance the country’s efforts to achieve its climate commitments and development goals. |
| Keywords: | sustainable finance, fiscal equalization, municipal-ities, financial inclusion. |
| JEL: | Q01 G1 G18 H63 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iad:wpaper:0625 |
| By: | Motloutsi, Veronica; Viriri, Serestina; Samuels, Alexander |
| Abstract: | Digital transformation is widely presented as a pathway to financial inclusion, entrepreneurial growth, and sustainable development, yet its developmental effects remain uneven in emerging economies. This tension is particularly evident in South Africa’s fintech entrepreneurial ecosystem, where a relatively sophisticated financial sector and expanding digital innovation coexist with persistent inequality, skills shortages, fragmented institutional support, and regulatory complexity. Existing digital transformation research has largely focused on firm-level adoption, business model innovation, and technology-enabled change, offering limited explanation of how broader ecosystem conditions shape sustainable development outcomes in contexts such as South Africa. In response, this article develops a Critical Realist Digital Transformation Capacity Framework to explain how digital transformation may contribute to sustainable development within South Africa’s fintech entrepreneurial ecosystem. Drawing on digital transformation theory, capacity development theory, entrepreneurial ecosystem scholarship, and critical realism, the article argues that digital transformation is not a self-executing technological process but a contextually mediated and capacity-dependent phenomenon. It identifies institutional capacity, human capacity, and policy capacity as the key generative mechanisms through which digital technologies may support financial inclusion, ecosystem resilience, entrepreneurial participation, and broader economic development. By integrating these literatures, the article extends global information technology scholarship beyond technology-centric and firm-level accounts and offers an African-centred, mechanism-based explanation of digitally enabled development. The framework provides a conceptual foundation for future empirical research and a diagnostic lens for policymakers, regulators, and ecosystem actors in South Africa and other emerging-market settings. The study contributes to information systems theory by introducing Digital Transformation Capacity as a higher-order theoretical construct that explains how institutional, human, and policy capacities mediate the relationship between digital transformation and sustainable development. |
| Date: | 2026–07–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:87vbp_v2 |
| By: | Luis Rodrigo Asturias; Guglielmo Maria Caporale; Luis Alberiko Gil-Alana; Carlos Ramirez |
| Abstract: | This paper uses fractional integration methods to estimate the degree of persistence of annual real remittances per capita to 21 Sub-Saharan African (SSA) and 12 Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries using data from World Bank World Development Indicators covering the period from 1980 to 2024. The results reveal substantial heterogeneity across both regions. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 5 (Kenya, Senegal, Benin, South Africa and Cameroon) of 21 countries show statistically significant mean reversion, whilst three others (Somalia, Côte d’Ivoire and Tunisia) display explosive persistence. In Latin America and the Caribbean, only the Dominican Republic and Panama display mean reversion. These findings shed light on whether shocks have transitory or permanent effects and therefore have crucial implications for the design of appropriate stabilization and development policies. |
| Keywords: | remittances, Africa, Latin America, persistence, fractional integration |
| JEL: | C22 F10 F13 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12840 |
| By: | Anna Chernesky; Kim P. Huynh; Marcel C. Voia |
| Abstract: | Cross-country evidence finds that there are low levels of financial literacy. Financial literacy is often measured using the “Big Three” questions about interest rates, inflation, and risk. These questions are usually part of a longer survey. Respondents in long surveys may suffer survey fatigue and have lower quality responses. Therefore, the placement of the questions (and survey fatigue) may play a role in the results. We use a randomization of question placement to estimate the causal effect on financial literacy results. We find that when financial literacy questions are placed at the end of a survey, respondents are more likely to answer “Don’t know.” The increase in “Don’t know” responses comes largely at the expense of correct responses. We find that this leads to a drop in financial literacy by 5%-15%. This research suggests a measure of financial literacy that is adapted to account for survey length. |
| Keywords: | Models and tools, Econometric, statistical and computational methods, Money and payments, Cash and bank notes, Digital assets and fintech, Payment and financial market infrastructures, Retail payments |
| JEL: | C81 C83 D12 G53 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocawp:26-5 |