IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jecinq/v10y2012i4p551-563.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Nonlinear dynamics of the finance-inequality nexus in developing countries

Author

Listed:
  • Hui-Boon Tan
  • Siong-Hook Law

Abstract

This study examines the dynamics of the finance-inequality nexus in 35 developing countries during the past two decades, using two data sets of income inequality: the University of Texas Inequality Project (UTIP) and the Standardized World Income Inequality Database (SWIID). The empirical results of this study, based on the dynamic panel models, provide new evidence that highlights the nonlinear U-shaped relationship between financial deepening and income distribution. It implies the narrowing of the income-inequality gap at the early stage of financial development of the countries. This improvement, however, will only be sustainable dynamically below a certain threshold level. Further deepening above that level will lead to a reverse effect, which deteriorates income inequality. This reflects the inefficiency of financial markets in improving economic inequality when the threshold level is overshot. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. 2012

Suggested Citation

  • Hui-Boon Tan & Siong-Hook Law, 2012. "Nonlinear dynamics of the finance-inequality nexus in developing countries," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 10(4), pages 551-563, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jecinq:v:10:y:2012:i:4:p:551-563
    DOI: 10.1007/s10888-011-9174-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10888-011-9174-3
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10888-011-9174-3?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Beck, Thorsten & Levine, Ross, 2004. "Stock markets, banks, and growth: Panel evidence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 423-442, March.
    2. Greenwood, Jeremy & Jovanovic, Boyan, 1990. "Financial Development, Growth, and the Distribution of Income," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 1076-1107, October.
    3. Deininger, Klaus & Squire, Lyn, 1996. "A New Data Set Measuring Income Inequality," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 10(3), pages 565-591, September.
    4. Ross Levine, 1997. "Financial Development and Economic Growth: Views and Agenda," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(2), pages 688-726, June.
    5. Asli Demeirgüç-Kunt & Ross Levine (ed.), 0. "Finance and Growth," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 17119.
    6. Ross Levine & Norman Loayza & Thorsten Beck, 2002. "Financial Intermediation and Growth: Causality and Causes," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Leonardo Hernández & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Se (ed.),Banking, Financial Integration, and International Crises, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 2, pages 031-084, Central Bank of Chile.
    7. Ben Gamra, Saoussen, 2009. "Does financial liberalization matter for emerging East Asian economies growth? Some new evidence," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 392-403, June.
    8. Banerjee, Abhijit V & Newman, Andrew F, 1993. "Occupational Choice and the Process of Development," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(2), pages 274-298, April.
    9. Panicos Demetriades & Svetlana Andrianova, "undated". "Finance and Growth: What We Know and What We Need To Know," Discussion Papers in Economics 03/15, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.
    10. Paul Wachtel, 2003. "How much do we really know about growth and finance?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, vol. 88(Q1), pages 33-47.
    11. Demetriades, Panicos O. & Hussein, Khaled A., 1996. "Does financial development cause economic growth? Time-series evidence from 16 countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 387-411, December.
    12. Oded Galor & Joseph Zeira, 1993. "Income Distribution and Macroeconomics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(1), pages 35-52.
    13. Beck, Thorsten & Levine, Ross & Loayza, Norman, 2000. "Finance and the sources of growth," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1-2), pages 261-300.
    14. Ang, James B. & McKibbin, Warwick J., 2007. "Financial liberalization, financial sector development and growth: Evidence from Malaysia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 215-233, September.
    15. Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, 2001. "Financial Systems, Industrial Structure, and Growth," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 17(4), pages 467-482.
    16. Ross Levine, 2003. "More on finance and growth: more finance, more growth?," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 85(Jul), pages 31-46.
    17. Jalilian, Hossein & Kirkpatrick, Colin, 2002. "Financial Development and Poverty Reduction in Developing Countries," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 7(2), pages 97-108, April.
    18. Georg R. G. Clarke & Lixin Colin Xu & Heng-fu Zou, 2006. "Finance and Income Inequality: What Do the Data Tell Us?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 72(3), pages 578-596, January.
    19. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Seven, Unal & Coskun, Yener, 2016. "Does financial development reduce income inequality and poverty? Evidence from emerging countries," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 34-63.
    2. James B. Ang, 2008. "A Survey Of Recent Developments In The Literature Of Finance And Growth," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(3), pages 536-576, July.
    3. Pradhan, Rudra P. & Arvin, Mak B. & Bahmani, Sahar & Hall, John H. & Norman, Neville R., 2017. "Finance and growth: Evidence from the ARF countries," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 136-148.
    4. Rudra P. Pradhan & Mak B. Arvin & John H. Hall & Sahar Bahmani, 2014. "Causal nexus between economic growth, banking sector development, stock market development, and other macroeconomic variables: The case of ASEAN countries," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 23(4), pages 155-173, November.
    5. Thorsten Beck & Asli Demirgüç-Kunt & Ross Levine, 2007. "Finance, inequality and the poor," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 27-49, March.
    6. James B. Ang, 2010. "Finance and Inequality: The Case of India," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 76(3), pages 738-761, January.
    7. Zeeshan Atiq & M. Emranul Haque, 2015. "Financial Development and Economic Growth: The Role of Financial Liberalization," Centre for Growth and Business Cycle Research Discussion Paper Series 201, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    8. Samargandi, Nahla & Fidrmuc, Jan & Ghosh, Sugata, 2015. "Is the Relationship Between Financial Development and Economic Growth Monotonic? Evidence from a Sample of Middle-Income Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 66-81.
    9. Ng, Adam & Dewandaru, Ginanjar & Ibrahim, Mansor H., 2015. "Property rights and the stock market-growth nexus," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 48-63.
    10. Beck Thorsten & Büyükkarabacak Berrak & Rioja Felix K. & Valev Neven T., 2012. "Who Gets the Credit? And Does It Matter? Household vs. Firm Lending Across Countries," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-46, March.
    11. Altunbaş, Yener & Thornton, John, 2020. "Finance and income inequality revisited," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 37(C).
    12. Levine, Ross, 2005. "Finance and Growth: Theory and Evidence," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 12, pages 865-934, Elsevier.
    13. Jean Arcand & Enrico Berkes & Ugo Panizza, 2015. "Too much finance?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 105-148, June.
    14. Salvador Perez-Moreno, 2011. "Financial development and poverty in developing countries: a causal analysis," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 57-80, August.
    15. Iordanis Kalaitzoglou & Beatrice Durgheu, 2016. "Financial growth and Economic Growth in Europe : Is the Euro Beneficial for All Countries?," Post-Print hal-00859252, HAL.
    16. Vighneswara Swamy & Munusamy Dharani, 2021. "Thresholds in finance–growth nexus: Evidence from G‐7 economies," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(1), pages 1-40, March.
    17. Law, Siong Hook & Kutan, Ali M. & Naseem, N.A.M., 2018. "The role of institutions in finance curse: Evidence from international data," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 174-191.
    18. George R. G. Clarke & Lixin Colin Xu & Heng‐fu Zou, 2006. "Finance and Income Inequality: What Do the Data Tell Us?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 72(3), pages 578-596, January.
    19. Seven, Ünal & Yetkiner, Hakan, 2016. "Financial intermediation and economic growth: Does income matter?," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 39-58.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial deepening; Income inequality; Gini coefficient; Dynamic panel analysis; E0; G0; O15;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E0 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General
    • G0 - Financial Economics - - General
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jecinq:v:10:y:2012:i:4:p:551-563. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.