Financial access and income inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa: Does ethnic fragmentation give new evidence?
Valentine Soumtang Bimé and
Itchoko Motande Mondjeli Mwa Ndjokou
Economic Systems, 2025, vol. 49, issue 1
Abstract:
There is a large body of work documenting the non-consensual effects of financial access on income inequality. Despite this extensive literature and the predominance of ethnic fragmentation in Sub Saharan Africa countries (SSA), little is known about its mediating effect on the above relation. This paper focuses on assessing the effect of ethnic fragmentation on financial access income inequality nexus. Based on Kripfganz and Schwarz's (2019) dynamic panel estimator of time-invariant variables in a sample of thirty-seven (37) SSA countries over the period of 1990–2019, it is observed that ethnic fragmentation hinders financial access to reduce inequality in SSA. The results remain stable following several sensitivity tests related to corruption, urbanization, financial literacy and socio-geographic factors. They are also robust to the use of alternative measures of financial access and to change estimation technique.
Keywords: Income inequality; Financial access; Ethnic fragmentation; Sub-Saharan Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C40 G20 I30 Z10 Z12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecosys:v:49:y:2025:i:1:s0939362524000220
DOI: 10.1016/j.ecosys.2024.101200
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