IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ris/eueclt/0010.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Inequality, poverty and quality of institutions: which freedom channels of globalization matter for Africa?

Author

Listed:
  • Asongu, Simplice A.

    (African Governance and Development Institute, P.O. Box 18 SOA/ 1365 Yaoundé, Cameroon)

Abstract

Are formal institutions instrumental in the effect globalization mechanisms have on the human face? If so, through which freedoms channels are poverty and inequality mitigated? With the instrumentality of formal institutions: (1) de jure financial liberalization (KAOPEN) has a positive income-redistribution impact while the de facto measure (FDI) does not; (2) political liberalization has a disequalizing effect and; (3) economic freedom has a positive (negative) effect on inequality (poverty). Hence, economic freedom does not stop the wealthy from growing wealthier, but at the same time provides for conditions that mitigate poverty. The findings broadly show that, despite the substantially documented negative incidences of some channels of globalization on poverty (and inequality), formal institutions have the capacity to device policies that will give capital openness, trade and economic liberalizations a human face. Social implications and policy options are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Asongu, Simplice A., 2013. "Inequality, poverty and quality of institutions: which freedom channels of globalization matter for Africa?," European Economic Letters, European Economics Letters Group, vol. 2(1), pages 24-31.
    • Handle: RePEc:ris:eueclt:0010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eelet.org.uk/EEL2(1)24-31.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Simplice A., Asongu, 2011. "Finance and inequality: exploring pro-poor investment channels in Africa," MPRA Paper 34994, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. M Ayhan Kose & Eswar Prasad & Kenneth Rogoff & Shang-Jin Wei, 2009. "Financial Globalization: A Reappraisal," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 56(1), pages 8-62, April.
    3. Michael Enowbi‐Batuo & Mlambo Kupukile, 2010. "How can economic and political liberalisation improve financial development in African countries?," Journal of Financial Economic Policy, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 2(1), pages 35-59, April.
    4. Hisako Kai & Shigeyuki Hamori, 2009. "Globalization, financial depth, and inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 29(3), pages 2025-2037.
    5. Simplice A. Asongu, 2013. "Investment And Inequality In Africa: Which Financial Channels Are Good For The Poor?," The African Finance Journal, Africagrowth Institute, vol. 15(2), pages 43-65.
    6. Eswar Prasad & Shang-Jin Wei, 2007. "The Chinese Approach to Capital Inflows: Patterns and Possible Explanations," NBER Chapters, in: Capital Controls and Capital Flows in Emerging Economies: Policies, Practices, and Consequences, pages 421-480, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Peter Blair Henry, 2007. "Capital Account Liberalization: Theory, Evidence, and Speculation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(4), pages 887-935, December.
    8. Sebastian Edwards, 2007. "Capital Controls and Capital Flows in Emerging Economies: Policies, Practices, and Consequences," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number edwa06-1, July.
    9. Aizenman, Joshua & Chinn, Menzie D. & Ito, Hiro, 2011. "Surfing the waves of globalization: Asia and financial globalization in the context of the trilemma," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 290-320, September.
    10. Machiko Nissanke & Erik Thorbecke, 2008. "Introduction: Globalization–Poverty Channels and Case Studies from Sub-Saharan Africa," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 20(1), pages 1-19.
    11. Philip Arestis & Asena Caner, 2010. "Capital account liberalisation and poverty: how close is the link?," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 34(2), pages 295-323, March.
    12. Peter Henry, 2007. "Capital Account Liberalization: Theory, Evidence, and Speculation," Discussion Papers 07-004, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    13. Cho, Yoon Je, 1986. "Inefficiencies from Financial Liberalization in the Absence of Well-Functioning Equity Markets," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 18(2), pages 191-199, May.
    14. Asongu Simplice, 2013. "Globalization and Africa: implications for human development," International Journal of Development Issues, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 12(3), pages 213-238, September.
    15. Alexander Cobham, "undated". "Capital Account Liberalisation and Poverty," QEH Working Papers qehwps70, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.
    16. Simplice A Asongu, 2013. "How has politico-economic liberalization affected financial allocation efficiency? Fresh African evidence," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(1), pages 663-676.
    17. Ayhan Kose, M. & Prasad, Eswar S. & Taylor, Ashley D., 2011. "Thresholds in the process of international financial integration," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 147-179, February.
    18. Federico Varese, 1997. "The Transition to the Market and Corruption in Post–socialist Russia," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 45(3), pages 579-596, August.
    19. Menzie D. Chinn & Hiro Ito, 2002. "Capital Account Liberalization, Institutions and Financial Development: Cross Country Evidence," NBER Working Papers 8967, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Simplice A, Asongu, 2011. "Law, democracy and the quality of government in Africa," MPRA Paper 35502, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Ila Patnaik & Ajay Shah, 2012. "Asia Confronts the Impossible Trinity," Chapters, in: Masahiro Kawai & Peter J. Morgan & Shinji Takagi (ed.), Monetary and Currency Policy Management in Asia, chapter 7, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    22. Joshua Aizenman & Reuven Glick, 2009. "Sterilization, Monetary Policy, and Global Financial Integration," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(4), pages 777-801, September.
    23. Arestis, Philip, et al, 2002. "The Impact of Financial Liberalization Policies on Financial Development: Evidence from Developing Economies," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 7(2), pages 109-121, April.
    24. Sebastian Edwards, 1999. "How Effective Are Capital Controls?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 65-84, Fall.
    25. William Easterly, 2002. "Inequality Does Cause Underdevelopment," Working Papers 1, Center for Global Development.
    26. Winters, L Alan, 2000. "Trade, Trade Policy and Poverty: What Are The Links?," CEPR Discussion Papers 2382, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    27. Alice Sindzingre, 2005. "Explaining Threshold Effects of Globalization on Poverty: an Institutional Perspective," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2005-53, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    28. Enowbi Batuo, Michael & Guidi, Francesco & Mlambo, Kupukile, 2010. "Financial Development and Income Inequality: Evidence from African Countries," MPRA Paper 25658, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    29. Wade, Robert, 1985. "The market for public office: Why the Indian state is not better at development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 467-497, April.
    30. Simplice A, Asongu, 2012. "Financial development dynamic thresholds of financial globalization: evidence from Africa," MPRA Paper 44254, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    31. Sebastian Edwards, 2007. "Introduction to "Capital Controls and Capital Flows in Emerging Economies: Policies, Practices and Consequences"," NBER Chapters, in: Capital Controls and Capital Flows in Emerging Economies: Policies, Practices, and Consequences, pages 1-18, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Asongu, Simplice A., 2013. "How do institutions matter in the income-equalizing effect of mobile phone penetration?," European Economic Letters, European Economics Letters Group, vol. 2(2), pages 56-61.
    2. Simplice A Asongu, 2014. "On the substitution of institutions and finance in investment," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 34(3), pages 1557-1574.

    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. Simplice Asongu, 2015. "Liberalisation and Financial Sector Competition: A Critical Contribution to the Empirics with an African Assessment," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 83(3), pages 425-451, September.
    2. Simplice A. Asongu & Jules R. Minkoua N., 2018. "Dynamic openness and finance in Africa," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(4), pages 409-430, May.
    3. Asongu Simplice & Michael E. Batuo, 2012. "The Impact of Liberalisation Policies on Inequality in Africa," Working Papers of the African Governance and Development Institute. 12/038, African Governance and Development Institute..
    4. Simplice A Asongu & Lieven De Moor, 2017. "Financial Globalisation Dynamic Thresholds for Financial Development: Evidence from Africa," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 29(1), pages 192-212, January.
    5. Simplice A Asongu, 2013. "How has politico-economic liberalization affected financial allocation efficiency? Fresh African evidence," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(1), pages 663-676.
    6. Michael Enowbi Batuo & Simplice A. Asongu, 2015. "The impact of liberalisation policies on income inequality in African countries," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 42(1), pages 68-100, January.
    7. Asongu, Simplice, 2015. "Financial development in Africa - a critical examination," MPRA Paper 82131, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Asongu Simplice, 2014. "Fresh Patterns of Liberalization, Bank Return and Return Uncertainty in Africa," Working Papers of the African Governance and Development Institute. 14/004, African Governance and Development Institute..
    9. Simplice Asongu & Uchenna Efobi & Ibukun Beecroft, 2015. "Inclusive Human Development in Pre-crisis Times of Globalization-driven Debts," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 27(4), pages 428-442, December.
    10. Aizenman, Joshua & Chinn, Menzie D. & Ito, Hiro, 2011. "Surfing the waves of globalization: Asia and financial globalization in the context of the trilemma," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 290-320, September.
    11. Simplice A. Asongu & Joseph Nnanna & Vanessa S. Tchamyou, 2020. "The comparative African regional economics of globalization in financial allocation efficiency: the pre-crisis era revisited," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 6(1), pages 1-41, December.
    12. Asongu, Simplice & Tchamyou, Vanessa, 2015. "The Comparative African Regional Economics of Globalization in Financial Allocation Efficiency," MPRA Paper 71173, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Batuo, Michael & Mlambo, Kupukile & Asongu, Simplice, 2018. "Linkages between financial development, financial instability, financial liberalisation and economic growth in Africa," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 168-179.
    14. Kose, M. Ayhan & Prasad, Eswar & Rogoff, Kenneth & Wei, Shang-Jin, 2010. "Financial Globalization and Economic Policies," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4283-4359, Elsevier.
    15. Jeffrey A. Frankel, 2010. "Monetary Policy in Emerging Markets: A Survey," NBER Working Papers 16125, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Simplice A. Asongu & Jacinta C. Nwachukwu, 2018. "Recent finance advances in information technology for inclusive development: a systematic review," Netnomics, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 65-93, October.
    17. Simplice A. Asongu, 2017. "The Comparative Economics of Knowledge Economy in Africa: Policy Benchmarks, Syndromes, and Implications," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 8(2), pages 596-637, June.
    18. Frankel, Jeffrey, 2010. "Monetary Policy in Emerging Markets," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 25, pages 1439-1520, Elsevier.
    19. Ayhan Kose, M. & Prasad, Eswar S. & Terrones, Marco E., 2009. "Does openness to international financial flows raise productivity growth?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 554-580, June.
    20. Vithessonthi, Chaiporn & Tongurai, Jittima, 2012. "The impact of capital account liberalization measures," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 16-34.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Globalization; Inequality; Poverty; Formal institutions; Africa;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F30 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - General
    • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics
    • F50 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - General
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • O55 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Africa

    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:ris:eueclt:0010. 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: Mike taylor The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Mike taylor to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.eelet.org.uk/ .

    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.