TY - JOUR
T1 - Financial inclusion and migrant remittances in Sub-Saharan Africa
T2 - a panel VAR approach
AU - Anarfo, Ebenezer Bugri
AU - Amewu, Godfred
AU - Dzeha, Gloria Clarissa
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited.
PY - 2020/7/15
Y1 - 2020/7/15
N2 - Purpose: This study examines the causal and dynamic link between financial inclusion and migrant remittances in sub-Saharan Africa. Design/methodology/approach: The study employed a panel vector autoregressive (VAR) framework to examine the dynamic relationship between financial inclusion and migrant remittances in sub-Saharan Africa. Findings: The findings indicate that there is a reverse causality between financial inclusion and migrant remittances in sub-Saharan Africa. Practical implications: The practical implications of these findings are that central governments and economic policymakers in sub-Saharan African countries should formulate and implement policies aimed at fostering financial inclusion if they are to attract more migrant remittances to promote economic growth and financial sector development. This suggests that these two variables are complementary and not contradictory. The results also suggest that central banks and other financial institutions can leverage the positive effect of financial inclusion of financial sector development to enhance the development of the financial sector instead of pursuing financial sector development as a policy objective. This means policies aimed at promoting financial inclusion will not impede or sacrifice migrant remittances, economic growth and financial sector development. Originality/value: This paper is the first to construct a financial inclusion index to examine the link between financial inclusion and migrant remittances from the sub-Saharan Africa perspective Peer review: The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-10-2019-0612/.
AB - Purpose: This study examines the causal and dynamic link between financial inclusion and migrant remittances in sub-Saharan Africa. Design/methodology/approach: The study employed a panel vector autoregressive (VAR) framework to examine the dynamic relationship between financial inclusion and migrant remittances in sub-Saharan Africa. Findings: The findings indicate that there is a reverse causality between financial inclusion and migrant remittances in sub-Saharan Africa. Practical implications: The practical implications of these findings are that central governments and economic policymakers in sub-Saharan African countries should formulate and implement policies aimed at fostering financial inclusion if they are to attract more migrant remittances to promote economic growth and financial sector development. This suggests that these two variables are complementary and not contradictory. The results also suggest that central banks and other financial institutions can leverage the positive effect of financial inclusion of financial sector development to enhance the development of the financial sector instead of pursuing financial sector development as a policy objective. This means policies aimed at promoting financial inclusion will not impede or sacrifice migrant remittances, economic growth and financial sector development. Originality/value: This paper is the first to construct a financial inclusion index to examine the link between financial inclusion and migrant remittances from the sub-Saharan Africa perspective Peer review: The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-10-2019-0612/.
KW - Economic growth
KW - Financial inclusion
KW - Financial sector development
KW - Migrant remittances
KW - Panel vector autoregression
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85086154061&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1108/IJSE-10-2019-0612
DO - 10.1108/IJSE-10-2019-0612
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85086154061
SN - 0306-8293
VL - 47
SP - 809
EP - 829
JO - International Journal of Social Economics
JF - International Journal of Social Economics
IS - 7
ER -