Publication:
The impact of crisis on income inequality: the moderating role of financial inclusion and Islamic banking
Abstract
The first objective of our study is to investigate how financial inclusion moderates the impact of crisis on income inequality. We treat financial inclusion as a potential moderating variable because it has the potential to impact income inequality both directly (through favourable labour market and employment effects) and indirectly (by inducing saving, impacting financial stability, and leading to growth, etc.). The empirical analysis is done using System GMM on a dynamic panel of 150 countries, spanning the period 1980-2018, for systemic banking and currency crises. Our results indicate that crises in general have an adverse distributional impact that is in some ways moderated by country-levels of financial inclusion: (a) the poor are provided increased savings and wealth accumulation opportunities; (b) easier availability of financial services improves the abilities of the poor to hedge against risks; (c) greater connectivity of the masses to the banking system means governments are able to disseminate aid packages during crisis times more efficiently; and (d) implementation of monetary policy becomes easier. As far as individual crisis types are concerned, financial inclusion favourably moderates the adverse impact of banking, currency, stock market, and domestic debt crisis. However, the adverse distributional impact of external debt crisis is amplified by increasing financial inclusion. This is potentially attributed to increased unemployment, an extended recession, and cuts in social expenditure by governments due to chronic (public and private) indebtedness caused by financial inclusion, among other reasons.
Keywords
Financial inclusion , Income inequality , Islamic banking
Citation
Mansoor, R. (2021). The impact of crisis on income inequality: the moderating role of financial inclusion and Islamic banking (Doctoral dissertation). INCEIF, Kuala Lumpur. Retrieved from https://ikr.inceif.org/handle/INCEIF/3686
Publisher
INCEIF
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