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This article aims to study the nonlinear effect of financial inclusion on tax revenue of 21 low financial development countries (LFDCs) and 22 high financial development countries (HFDCs) from 2004 to 2020.

The study calculates the world average financial development index (FD̅) for all countries using data from the IMF. The average FD of HFDCs is higher than (FD̅). On the other hand, the average FD of LFDCs is lower than (FD̅). Data of 21 LFDCs and 22 HFDCs cover the period 2004–2020. With the small sample problem, we applied the Bayesian method to examine the nonlinear effect of financial inclusion on the tax revenue of the two groups of countries.

Using the Bayesian method, the results show that financial inclusion negatively impacts tax revenue with an absolute probability of 100% in LFDCs and a lower probability of 92.45% in HFDCs. Additionally, the financial inclusion threshold at LFDCs is 18.90. Below this threshold, financial inclusion promotes tax revenue with a 100% probability. On the contrary, when financial inclusion exceeds the threshold, it will have a negative effect on tax revenue. Similarly, the financial inclusion threshold at HFDCs is 20.14, with a probability of 92.45%.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to examine the nonlinear impact of financial inclusion on tax revenue in high and low financial development countries.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the existing literature in the domain of financial inclusion and emphasizing forthcoming trends. It examines recent literature while assessing the geographical distribution, identifying well-known authors, publications, journals and keyword occurrences.

Based on a scientific search technique, bibliometric analysis in the field of financial inclusion was carried out on a sample of 2,125 Scopus documents for the years 2004–2022. A VOS viewer was used in the study as a tool for performance evaluation and analysis of the science mapping.

The bibliometric analysis illustrates that India and the USA are dominating in financial inclusion field with significant contributions. The most well-known authors were Ghosh, S. and Munene, J.C. and International Journal of Social Economics was considered as the best journal. Finally, six prominent clusters were identified through keyword analysis. The major themes revolve around digitalization, economic development, demographic and geographic factors and financial literacy.

The research helps in providing information for formulating financial inclusion policies for RBI and Government of India. A comprehensive literature assessment is useful for future scholars to develop a solid conceptual framework. This research would help practitioners to formulate strategies for rural population to enhance their earnings, investments and money.

This study can supply data to describe the framework of earlier financial inclusion studies and provides potential directions for future research.

This paper studies the effect of digital financial inclusion in banking on the poor and deprived populations of African emerging economies from 1997 to 2023.

Automated teller machines, mobile payments and mobile money transactions measure digital financial inclusion. Household consumption expenditure proxies poverty reduction. The autoregressive distributed lag analyzes the study.

The results indicate that automated teller machines, mobile money transactions and financial deepening positively affect poverty reduction, while mobile payments negatively affect poverty reduction. Digital financial inclusion decreases poverty via increased investment and empowerment.

Digital financial products and services should be expanded to all population segments in the economies. The governments should improve the quality and quantity of institutions that guarantee the operation of digital financial activities through the enforcement of law and order. The quality and quantity of mobile money transactions and financial deepening should be increased. The costs and charges involved in using automated teller machines and mobile payments should be regulated to relieve the burden on the population. The government should facilitate access to digital financial services via power supply, transport and telecommunication networks. Banks and telecommunications service providers should improve the payment system network to ensure cost-effective, convenient and secure financial service delivery. The digital infrastructure and financial services markets should be enhanced to fully capture the gains of financial inclusion and reduce poverty.

A literature review provides studies with conflicting findings on the effect of digital financial inclusion on poverty reduction. This study supports that digital financial inclusion decreases poverty.

This study examined the impact of digital finance on SME financial inclusion in Africa.

The study obtained data from the International Monetary Fund's Financial Access Survey and World Development Indicators covering the period from 2011 to 2022. Heteroskedastic panels corrected standard errors (HPCSE) and feasible generalized least squares regressions were employed in the analysis.

The findings indicate that digital finance (volume and intensity) significantly improves SME financial inclusion in Africa.

Due to the paucity of data, the study covered only 17 African countries over 12 years (2011–2022).

The findings imply the need for African central banks and other relevant regulatory bodies to establish effective regulations mandating Deposit Money Banks and other financial institutions to operate agent banking. This would facilitate access to financial services for SME owners. Such measures could financially include more unbanked SME owners, especially those in rural areas. Moreover, these initiatives must be strongly supported by introducing user-friendly digital financial technologies and registering more financial technology (fintech) companies.

Implementing necessary measures to enhance access to digital financial services for SMEs in Africa is likely to reduce unemployment and poverty and contribute to the economic growth and development of the region.

This study provides empirical evidence showing how digital finance affects SME financial inclusion in Africa.

The current study heeds prior calls to test the hypothesis that perceptions of inclusion mediate the relationship between inclusive practices and employee outcomes.

Using responses from 3,367 employees drawn from three time-separated surveys administered between 2020 and 2022 within a large retail fashion chain, structural equation modeling (SEM) was conducted to examine the mediating role of perceptions of inclusion connecting inclusion’s antecedents and outcomes. Exploratory multigroup SEM and relative weights analysis was conducted to examine the relative contribution of each antecedent of perceptions of inclusion across racial/ethnic groups.

We identified manager support, career support, organizational support, transparency, and employee recognition as antecedents of perceptions of inclusion, as well as work engagement, organizational commitment, and intent to stay as outcomes of perceptions of inclusion. Recognition indirectly relates to employee outcomes via perceptions of inclusion, but we did not find evidence of mediation for the other antecedents. Exploratory analyses suggest that career support and employee recognition are the most predictive antecedents of perceptions of inclusion overall. However, there are racial/ethnic group differences regarding which inclusive practices most contribute to perceptions of inclusion.

Results uncover several directions for future research and suggest that to truly make employees feel both included and unique at work, organizations should focus on supporting employees' career development goals and recognizing their valuable contributions.

This study aims to comparatively measure the impact factors of financial inclusion and their spillover effects for Belt and Road countries using panel data from 57 countries in 2011, 2014, 2017 and 2021 and relevant indicators from three dimensions: availability, usage and quality to construct a digital empowerment index of financial inclusion.

A spatial Durbin panel model is constructed to empirically test the impact mechanism of financial inclusion under digital empowerment.

Results reveal that improving a country’s quality of regulation, technology and residents’ financial literacy significantly contributes to the development of its financial inclusion, while improving its neighboring countries’ financial literacy also boosts its financial inclusion development. This study provides theoretical support for evaluating the development level of inclusive finance in “Belt and Road” countries, promoting the development of inclusive finance and alleviating the problem of financial exclusion.

This study is original as it creates a research paradigm for “Belt and Road” countries, enabling systematic testing and comparative analysis of inclusive finance development. It incorporates traditional and digital services, evaluating them based on sharing, fairness, convenience and specific group benefits. An inclusive financial index is constructed using the coefficient of variation and arithmetic weighted average methods. Additionally, it introduces a more rational analysis approach for the influence mechanism and spatial effect, using an economic geography nested matrix and spatial Durbin model to explore spatial effects in inclusive finance.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of perceived group inclusion on the innovative work behavior of consulting team members, as well as to analyze its subsequent impact on team performance. In addition, the authors investigate whether the effect of perceived group inclusion on innovative work behavior could be moderated by two aspects of team characteristics: team size and the gender composition of its members.

The authors collected questionnaire data from 229 team members from 24 consulting firms located in Bangkok, Thailand. Team performance was assessed by team leaders to prevent common method bias. Partial least squares-structural equation modeling was used for data analysis.

The results support the positive association between perceived group inclusion and innovative work behavior among consulting team members. Innovative work behavior also mediates the positive association between perceived group inclusion and team performance. Moreover, the authors found that the degree to which perceived group inclusion affects innovative work behavior is stronger in larger teams than smaller teams. However, the degree to which perceived group inclusion affects innovative work behavior tends to be weaker in teams that have a higher proportion of female members than in teams that have fewer female members.

Because employees are the most valuable asset contributing to the innovative performance of consulting firms, it is crucial to understand how members within a team should be properly managed so that the firms can maximize the benefits from their human capital. Essentially, management and practitioners in the consulting business can use the insight from this research regarding the essential roles of group inclusion and team composition to create a favorable and effective team environment that enhances collaboration and helps their firms to gain the full benefits of team synergy. In particular, group inclusion is the issue that management should emphasize. Moreover, the team should be large enough and have a decent level of gender diversity to strengthen the benefit of group inclusion.

The research extends the knowledge boundary in inclusion research, which still lacks evidence about the moderating role of team characteristics that might strengthen/weaken the effect of perceived group inclusion on innovative behaviors.

This paper provides a systematic review of literature pertaining to the welfare impact of financial inclusion. We identify the 50 most influential publications in the field that have evolved into three distinct categories, each of which we critically review to identify the main contributions of this research area.

By conducting a state-of-the-art literature review, this paper identifies the most influential papers in the research fields on the welfare impact of financial inclusion. One caveat is that as newer publications generally have fewer citations, reviewing prior work can result in a misleading account of emerging trends and research directions. Manual assessment of publications after 2018 facilitates a discussion of important emerging research trends and their directions.

The three key research streams are identified as financial services and financial accessibility, financial capability, and financial literacy and household welfare. By assessing publications from 2018 to 2023, we also document four key emerging research trends: Fintech and digital financial inclusion, sustainability and climate change, growth, poverty, income inequality, financial stability, and Entrepreneurship. Drawing on these emerging trends, we highlight the opportunities for future research.

Keyword searches have limitations as some papers might be overlooked if they do not match the specific search criteria, despite their relation and significance to the overall topic of the welfare impact of financial inclusion. To address this issue, we have expanded this review by incorporating more literature from other databases, such as the Scopus database which may alleviate this issue.

The three key research streams contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the welfare impact of financial inclusion. The emerging trends integrate existing knowledge and leave the chance for innovative research to expand the research frontier.

This paper fulfils the systematic literature review streams in the welfare impact of financial inclusion and provides fruitful opportunities for future research.

Financial inclusion and digital finance go side by side and help enhance agricultural activities; however, the magnitude of digital financial services varies across countries. In line with this argument, this study aims to examine whether financial inclusion enhances agricultural participation and decompose the significance of the difference in determinants of agricultural participation between financially included – not financially included households and digital finance – no digital finance households.

This study uses Pakistan’s household integrated economic survey 2018/19 to test hypotheses. The logit model is used to examine the effect of financial inclusion on agriculture participation. Moreover, this study employs a nonlinear Fairlie Oaxaca Blinder technique to investigate the difference in determinants of agricultural participation.

This study reports that financial inclusion positively influences agricultural participation, meaning households may have access to financial services and participate in agricultural activities. The results suggest that the likelihood of participating in agriculture in households with mobiles and smartphones is higher. Moreover, household size, income, age, gender, education, urban, remittances from abroad, fertilizer, pesticides, wheat, cotton, sugarcane, fruits and vegetables are the significant determinants of agricultural participation. To distinguish the financially included – not financially included households’ gap, this study employs a nonlinear Fairlie Oaxaca Blinder decomposition and finds that differences in fertilizer explain the substantial gap in agricultural participation. Likewise, this study tests the digital finance – no digital finance gap and finds that the difference in fertilizer is a significant contributor, describing a considerable gap in agricultural participation.

Empirically identified that various factors cause agricultural participation including financial inclusion and digital finance. Regarding the research limitation, this study only considers a developing country to analyze the findings. However, for future research, scholars may consider some other countries to compare the results and identify their differences.

The accessibility of fertilizer can reduce the agricultural participation gap. However, increased income level, education and cotton and sugar production can also overcome the differences in agriculture participation between digital finance and no digital finance households.

This is the first study to decompose the difference in determinants of agricultural participation between financially and not financially included households.

Focusing on micro-level indicators, we investigate financial inclusion levels in rural China, examining its determinants and impact on household welfare. We construct a financial inclusion index of four essential financial services: savings, digital payments, credit and insurance. We identify factors influencing financial inclusion among Chinese rural households and assess the effects of financial inclusion on household welfare.

With the entropy method, we use data from the 2019 China Household Finance Survey to assess financial inclusion levels in rural China. Determinants and their impact on welfare are analyzed through probit and ordinary least squares models, respectively. Propensity scoring matching is applied to address potential endogeneity.

We reveal that rural households exhibit limited usage of formal financial services, with notable regional disparities. The eastern region enjoys the highest financial inclusion and the central region lags behind. Household characteristics such as family size, education level of the household head, income, employment status and financial literacy significantly influence financial inclusion. Financial inclusion positively impacts household welfare as indicated by household consumption expenditure. The use of different types of financial services is crucial with varying but significant effects on household welfare.

This study offers valuable insights into China’s rural financial inclusion progress, highlighting potential barriers and guiding government actions.