IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ememar/v53y2022ics1566014122000620.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does financial liberalization reduce income inequality? Evidence from Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Koudalo, Yawovi M.A.
  • Wu, Ji

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of financial liberalization on income inequality by using the country-level panel data from 51 African countries in more than two decades. We find that income inequality increases, rather than decreases, with the level of financial liberalization. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that financial liberalization likely induces banks to allocate the scarce financial resources in African countries more discriminatively to rich clienteles but excludes the poor ones from financial access, which thus widens the income gap.

Suggested Citation

  • Koudalo, Yawovi M.A. & Wu, Ji, 2022. "Does financial liberalization reduce income inequality? Evidence from Africa," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ememar:v:53:y:2022:i:c:s1566014122000620
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ememar.2022.100945
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1566014122000620
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ememar.2022.100945?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. de Haan, Jakob & Sturm, Jan-Egbert, 2017. "Finance and income inequality: A review and new evidence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 171-195.
    2. Thomas Blanchet & Lucas Chancel & Amory Gethin, 2019. "How Unequal is Europe? Evidence from Distributional National Accounts, 1980-2017," World Inequality Lab Working Papers hal-02877000, HAL.
    3. Manthos D. Delis & Iftekhar Hasan & Pantelis Kazakis, 2014. "Bank Regulations and Income Inequality: Empirical Evidence," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 18(5), pages 1811-1846.
    4. Dilip Mookherjee & Debraj Ray, 2003. "Persistent Inequality," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 70(2), pages 369-393.
    5. 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.
    6. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, 2018. "Distributional National Accounts: Methods and Estimates for the United States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 133(2), pages 553-609.
    7. Abiad, Abdul & Oomes, Nienke & Ueda, Kenichi, 2008. "The quality effect: Does financial liberalization improve the allocation of capital?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 270-282, October.
    8. Gunes Gokmen & Annaig Morin, 2019. "Inequality in the aftermath of financial crises: some empirical evidence," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(19), pages 1558-1562, November.
    9. Abdul Abiad & Enrica Detragiache & Thierry Tressel, 2010. "A New Database of Financial Reforms," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 57(2), pages 281-302, June.
    10. Jan Boone, 2008. "A New Way to Measure Competition," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(531), pages 1245-1261, August.
    11. 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.
    12. Stijn Claessens & Neeltje Van Horen, 2014. "Foreign Banks: Trends and Impact," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(s1), pages 295-326, February.
    13. Borio, Claudio & Zhu, Haibin, 2012. "Capital regulation, risk-taking and monetary policy: A missing link in the transmission mechanism?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 236-251.
    14. Frederick Solt, 2016. "The Standardized World Income Inequality Database," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1267-1281, November.
    15. L. ALAN WINTERS & NEIL McCULLOCH & ANDREW McKAY, 2015. "Trade Liberalization and Poverty: The Evidence So Far," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Non-Tariff Barriers, Regionalism and Poverty Essays in Applied International Trade Analysis, chapter 14, pages 271-314, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    16. Jan Boone, 2008. "A New Way to Measure Competition," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(531), pages 1245-1261, August.
    17. Davide Furceri & Mr. Prakash Loungani, 2015. "Capital Account Liberalization and Inequality," IMF Working Papers 2015/243, International Monetary Fund.
    18. Mr. Luc Laeven & Mr. Fabian Valencia, 2018. "Systemic Banking Crises Revisited," IMF Working Papers 2018/206, International Monetary Fund.
    19. Gelos, R. Gaston & Werner, Alejandro M., 2002. "Financial liberalization, credit constraints, and collateral: investment in the Mexican manufacturing sector," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 1-27, February.
    20. Das, Mitali & Mohapatra, Sanket, 2003. "Income inequality: the aftermath of stock market liberalization in emerging markets," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 10(1-2), pages 217-248, February.
    21. Cubillas, Elena & González, Francisco, 2014. "Financial liberalization and bank risk-taking: International evidence," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 11(C), pages 32-48.
    22. Malvika Mahesh, 2016. "The effects of trade openness on income inequality - evidence from BRIC countries," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 36(3), pages 1751-1761.
    23. Lim, G.C. & McNelis, Paul D., 2016. "Income growth and inequality: The threshold effects of trade and financial openness," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 403-412.
    24. Katsiaryna Svirydzenka, 2016. "Introducing a New Broad-based Index of Financial Development," IMF Working Papers 2016/005, International Monetary Fund.
    25. Jie Li & Han Yu, 2014. "Income inequality and financial reform in Asia: the role of human capital," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(24), pages 2920-2935, August.
    26. Rajan, Raghuram G. & Zingales, Luigi, 2003. "The great reversals: the politics of financial development in the twentieth century," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 5-50, July.
    27. 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.
    28. Kaufmann, Daniel & Kraay, Aart & Mastruzzi, Massimo, 2010. "The worldwide governance indicators : methodology and analytical issues," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5430, The World Bank.
    29. Abdul Abdullah & Hristos Doucouliagos & Elizabeth Manning, 2015. "Does Education Reduce Income Inequality? A Meta-Regression Analysis," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 301-316, April.
    30. Bumann, Silke & Lensink, Robert, 2016. "Capital account liberalization and income inequality," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 143-162.
    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. Baiardi, Donatella & Morana, Claudio, 2018. "Financial development and income distribution inequality in the euro area," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 40-55.
    2. Ni, Niannian & Liu, Yulin, 2019. "Financial liberalization and income inequality: A meta-analysis based on cross-country studies," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 1-1.
    3. Li, Xiang & Su, Dan, 2020. "Capital account liberalisation does worsen income inequality," IWH Discussion Papers 7/2020, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    4. de Haan, Jakob & Sturm, Jan-Egbert, 2017. "Finance and income inequality: A review and new evidence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 171-195.
    5. Ni, Niannian & Liu, Yulin & Zhou, Hui, 2022. "Financial openness, capital rents and income inequality," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    6. de Haan, Jakob & Sturm, Jan-Egbert, 2017. "Finance and income inequality: A review and new evidence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 171-195.
    7. Dong-Hyeon Kim & Joyce Hsieh & Shu-Chin Lin, 2021. "Financial liberalization, political institutions, and income inequality," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 60(3), pages 1245-1281, March.
    8. Onur zdemir, 2019. "Autoregressive Distributed Lag Approach to the Income Inequality and Financial Liberalization Nexus: Empirical Evidence from Turkey," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 9(6), pages 1-15.
    9. Sturm, Jan-Egbert & De Haan, Jakob, 2016. "Finance and income inequality revisited," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145660, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    10. Xiang Li & Dan Su, 2021. "Does Capital Account Liberalization Affect Income Inequality?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 83(2), pages 377-410, April.
    11. Brei, Michael & Ferri, Giovanni & Gambacorta, Leonardo, 2023. "Financial structure and income inequality," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    12. Cong Minh Huynh & Nam Hoai Tran, 2023. "Financial development, income inequality, and institutional quality: A multi-dimensional analysis," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(2), pages 2242128-224, June.
    13. Dirk Bezemer & Anna Samarina, 2019. "Debt shift, financial development and income inequality," DNB Working Papers 646, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    14. Philipp Heimberger, 2019. "Beeinflusst die ökonomische Globalisierung die Einkommensungleichheit? Eine Meta-Analyse," Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft - WuG, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik, vol. 45(4), pages 497-529.
    15. Chi-Chuan Lee & Chien-Chiang Lee, 2018. "The Impact of Country Risk on Income Inequality: A Multilevel Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 136(1), pages 139-162, February.
    16. Ọláyínká Oyèkọ́lá, 2021. "Finance and inequality in a panel of US States," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(5), pages 2739-2795, November.
    17. Julia Tanndal & Daniel Waldenström, 2018. "Does Financial Deregulation Boost Top Incomes? Evidence from the Big Bang," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 85(338), pages 232-265, April.
    18. Onur Özdemir, 2019. "Rethinking the financial Kuznets curve in the framework of income inequality: Empirical evidence on advanced and developing economies," Economics and Business Letters, Oviedo University Press, vol. 8(4), pages 176-190.
    19. Philipp Heimberger, 2020. "Does economic globalisation affect income inequality? A meta‐analysis," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(11), pages 2960-2982, November.
    20. James B. Ang, 2010. "Finance and Inequality: The Case of India," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 76(3), pages 738-761, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial liberalization; Income inequality; Africa;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • F36 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Financial Aspects of Economic Integration
    • 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:eee:ememar:v:53:y:2022:i:c:s1566014122000620. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620356 .

    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.