| Abstract: |
Using twenty-five policy variables, we investigate determinants of mobile
phone/banking in 49 Sub-Saharan African countries with data for the year 2011.
The determinants are classified into six policy categories, notably:
macroeconomic, business/bank, market-related, knowledge economy, external
flows and human development. The empirical evidence is based on contemporary
and non-contemporary Quantile regressions. The following implications are
relevant to the findings. First, mobile phone penetration is positively
correlated with: (i) education, domestic savings, regulation quality and
patent applications, especially at low initial levels of mobile penetration;
(ii) bank density; (iii) urban population density and (iv) internet
penetration. Second, the use of the mobile to pay bills is positively linked
with: (i) trade and internet penetration, especially in contemporary
specifications and (ii) remittances and patent applications, especially at low
initial levels of the dependent variable. Third, using the mobile to
send/receive money is positively correlated with: internet penetration and
human development, especially in the contemporary specifications. Fourth,
mobile banking is positively linked with: (i) trade in contemporary
specifications; (ii) remittances and patent applications at low initial levels
of the dependent variable and (iii) internet penetration and human
development, with contemporary threshold evidence. The policy implications are
articulated with incremental policy syndromes. |