| By: |
Cyn-Young Park (Asian Development Bank);
Rogelio Mercado Jr. (South East Asian Central Banks (SEACEN) Research and Training Centre) |
| Abstract: |
This paper introduces a new index of financial inclusion for 151 economies
using principal component analysis to compute weights for aggregating 9
indicators of access, availability, and usage. It then assesses the impact of
financial inclusion on poverty and income inequality. The results provide
evidence that high and middle-high-income economies with high financial
inclusion have significantly lower poverty, while no such relation exists for
middle-low and low-income economies. The nonlinearities in the cross-country
determinants and impacts of financial inclusion on poverty and income
inequality across income groups are important to choosing the appropriate
policies for achieving inclusive growth in different development stages. |
| Keywords: |
financial inclusion, poverty, income inequality |
| JEL: |
G18 O11 O16 |
| Date: |
2018–01 |
| URL: |
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sea:wpaper:wp29&r=fle |