| Abstract: |
We analyse the popularity of the term ‘financial inclusion’ in relation to
other development buzzwords. We extract trend data for multiple development
buzzwords across countries and cities from 2004 to 2022 and we run a series of
empirical analyses. We find that the ‘financial inclusion’ buzzword is popular
because the term ‘financial inclusion’ is correlated with other development
buzzwords particularly ‘microfinance’, ‘digital finance’, ‘inclusive finance’,
‘financial exclusion’ and ‘fintech’ buzzwords. Financial inclusion buzzword is
more popular in developing countries than in developed countries. Financial
inclusion buzzword is also popular in major cities in developing countries. We
also observe that the financial inclusion buzzword was more popular during the
second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. There is uni-directional causality
between interest in financial inclusion and interest in fintech and inclusive
finance, indicating that interest in financial inclusion buzzword causes
interest in fintech and inclusive finance buzzword. There is also
uni-directional causality between interest in financial exclusion and interest
in financial inclusion. Finally, there is a significant correlation between
interest in the ‘financial inclusion’, ‘digital finance’, ‘inclusive finance’
and ‘fintech’ buzzwords. |
| Keywords: |
buzzword, development, microfinance, financial inclusion, digital finance, fintech, inclusive finance, financial exclusion. |