Do financial innovations improve financial inclusion? Evidence from mobile money adoption in Africa

Désiré Avom, Chrysost Bangake (chrysost.bangake@univ-artois.fr) and Hermann Ndoya
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Désiré Avom: CEREG - University of Yaoundé II-SOA, Centre d'Etudes et de Recherche en Economie et Gestion
Chrysost Bangake: LEM - Lille économie management - UMR 9221 - UA - Université d'Artois - UCL - Université catholique de Lille - Université de Lille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of financial innovations (mobile money) on financial inclusion. Using both parametric and nonparametric methods on panel data from 50 African countries over the period 2004–2020, we find that mobile money adoption positively affects financial inclusion. Indeed, the results from propensity score matching show that mobile money adoption promotes financial inclusion in a range of 12–14 %. These results stem from the match between the services offered to individuals and their needs. Our results remain robust to a battery of robustness checks, including alternative measures of financial inclusion, alternative sample, heterogeneity analysis, as well as alternative estimation method. Overall, this study contributes to the construction of a hitherto underdeveloped literature on the macroeconomic impact of mobile money in the context of digitalization of the financial system.

Keywords: Financial innovations; Financial inclusion; Mobile money; Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-05
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published in Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2023, 190, pp.122451. ⟨10.1016/j.techfore.2023.122451⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04125452

DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2023.122451

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