Economic Integration and Financial Inclusion: Evidence from Middle-Income Countries

Vuong Ngoc Bao () and Suzuki Yoshihisa ()
Additional contact information
Vuong Ngoc Bao: Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan, Postal: Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hiroshima University, 1-1-89 Higashi-Senda, Naka-ku, Hiroshima 730-0053, Japan
Suzuki Yoshihisa: Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan, Postal: Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hiroshima University, 1-1-89 Higashi-Senda, Naka-ku, Hiroshima 730-0053, Japan

Journal of Economic Integration, 2025, vol. 40, issue 1, 53-70

Abstract: The study examines the impact of economic integration on financial inclusion, focusing on thirty-two middle-income countries worldwide from 2006 to 2018. Using the coefficient of variance's weighting methodology, we construct a composite financial inclusion index from six underlying indicators. Meanwhile, economic integration indices at both global and regional levels are created based on the combination of trade and financial openness indicators. The empirical results confirm a positive relationship between economic integration and financial inclusion, with global integration exposing a stronger impact than regional one. Our finding still holds when we divide the sample into three subregions as well as when several robustness checks are performed.

Keywords: Financial Inclusion; Economic Integration; Middle-Income Countrie (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F36 F60 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.e-jei.org Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:integr:0934

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Integration is currently edited by Seongeun Kim

More articles in Journal of Economic Integration from Center for Economic Integration, Sejong University Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Yunhoe Kim ().