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The purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive review of the literature on financial inclusion, with a focus on its relationship to financial and economic development.

This paper begins by surveying the field of financial inclusion research over the past 15 years, highlighting the evolution of how financial inclusion has been studied in practice. By reviewing 107 studies published between 2008 and 2023 in 63 peer-reviewed journals, the study emphasizes the importance of recent research in this field.

The analysis reveals key findings on the positive impact of financial inclusion on economic growth, poverty reduction, financial stability and CO₂ emissions, among other factors. Despite the extensive empirical and theoretical work accomplished in the field, the study argues that there is still a need for further research on financial inclusion, including exploring new regions and financial and economic development indicators such as social capital, entrepreneurship and political stability.

This research aspires to map the emerging discourse on this topic, identify major gaps, and provide a productive line to guide future research. This will contribute to the ongoing debate led by the World Bank on financial inclusion as an effective measure to fight poverty. This study attempts to proffer ideas to encourage collaborative research and deepen our understanding on the role of financial inclusion.

This study offers a comprehensive overview of recent research on financial inclusion and highlights the need for further research in this field. This study also proposes a promising future research agenda to guide future advancements in the area of financial inclusion.

The impact of financial inclusion on economic growth is a topic that is generating widespread interest among researchers and practitioners. In this paper, the authors review the existing literature to highlight the state of research in the literature and identify new opportunities for innovative research.

The authors used a thematic literature review methodology which involves dividing the review along relevant themes.

The authors find that significant research on the topic emerged in the post-2016 years. Most of the existing studies are from developing countries and from the Asian and African regions. Existing studies have not utilized relevant theories in explaining the impact of financial inclusion on economic growth. Most studies report a positive impact of financial inclusion on economic growth while very few studies show a negative impact. The most common channel through which financial inclusion affects economic growth is through greater access to financial products and services offered by financial institutions that increases financial intermediation and translates to positive economic growth. The common empirical methodology used in the literature are causality tests, cointegration and regression methods. Multiple proxies of financial inclusion and economic growth were used in the literature which partly explains the conflicting result among existing studies. The review paper concludes by identifying some directions for future research.

This paper presents the first rigorous thematic review of the existing literature on the impact of financial inclusion on economic growth. It highlights the main approach that researchers have taken on this topic and identifies some important research areas for future investigation.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-05-2022-0339.

This paper explores the implications of financial inclusion and financial development for the conduct of monetary policy in achieving price stability and economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

The paper employs the system-generalized methods of moment (GMM) estimation technique using panel data spanning 2004 to 2019 and sourced from Databases of (International Monetary Fund's) IMF's Financial Access Survey (FAS), IMF's International Financial Statistics (IFS), World Bank's Global Financial Development Database (GFDD) and World Bank's World Development Indicators (WDI).

The authors find that financial inclusion has a double-edge effect in SSA. That is, it increases economic growth and lowers inflation in SSA. Furthermore, the results show that a simultaneous increase in financial inclusion and financial development have restrictive effects on economic growth. On the evidence provided, the authors conclude that financial inclusion is an important predictor of economic growth and the conduct of monetary policy in the sub-region.

This paper expands and contributes to the frontier of knowledge how financial inclusion is important for the conduct of monetary policy by monetary authorities in achieving its intended objectives in SSA. The paper highlights the need for ongoing enhancement of financial inclusion of many governments in the sub-region to achieving high economic growth and price stability. Thus, there is the need for policy makers to ensure that a more stringent, effective and appropriate policies and measures are put in place to enhance financial inclusion while taking into consideration the extent of financial development in SSA.

The purpose of this study is to assess the nexus between the vast dimensions of financial inclusion and economic development of the emerging Indian economy.

In this study, vector auto-regression (VAR) models and Granger causality test were followed to test the main research question in Indian context. The data were collected on various dimensions of financial inclusion and economic development for the period 2004-2013.

Empirical results and discussion suggest that there is a positive association between economic growth and various dimensions of financial inclusion, specifically banking penetration, availability of banking services and usage of banking services in terms of deposits. Granger causality analysis reveals a bi-directional causality between geographic outreach and economic development and a unidirectional causality between the number of deposits/loan accounts and gross domestic product. The results obtained favor social banking experiments in India with a deepening of banking institutions.

This study is limited to the banking institutions and specifically to the emerging and developing economies.

This study analyzes the quantitative value of social banking experiments and governments’ efforts to enhance financial inclusion in terms of economic growth.

Financial inclusion plays a key role in developing a strong and an efficient financial infrastructure, which facilitates the growth of an economy. The findings of the study reveal that there is a strong association between banking penetration and growth. The discussion leads in the favor of deepening of the banking institutions, and therefore, policymakers can look forward to these findings to maintain a sustainable-inclusive-developed economic system in an emerging economy like India.

This study is original in nature and includes recent evidence and efforts to promote financial inclusion in the Indian economy. The findings of this study will be of value to banks and policymakers.

The chapter examines the relationship between social inclusion patterns and economic development in selected EU countries. This research has two objectives: (i) to reveal whether there are similarities among the EU countries in nation’s social inclusiveness of three demographic groups, namely the entire population, immigrants, and Roma communities; and (ii) to analyze the influence of social inclusion indicators on sustainable economic development and prosperity for the EU countries by accounting for the ethnicity impact. The chapter presents the results of a cluster analysis approach, which indicates best-positioned countries and emphasizes vulnerabilities in terms of social inclusiveness both in a broad demographic sense (the entire population) and a narrow sense (immigrants and respective Roma population). The chapter then employs a panel data regression approach to investigate which social inclusion indicators might have the potentially influencing role on economic development. Seven alternative proxies for sustainable economic development and prosperity measures were used. The social inclusion indicators, as explanatory variables, are represented by the education-related indicators and labor market-related indicators. The robustness and stability of the estimates are validated by including several interaction terms in the baseline regression model to account for the occurrence of the financial crisis. Overall, improving both population as well as immigrants’ inclusion is shown to have an important impact on sustainable economic development in the EU countries.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the nonlinear association between financial inclusion and inclusive economic growth (IEG) in developed economies. A Block of G7 countries (Germany, Japan, Canada, France, Italy, the UK and the US) are considered in this study.

For analysis, the authors have employed the “Panel Smooth Transition Regression model.” Annual data consists of the period from 1995 to 2019.

This research makes a unique contribution to literature with reference to G7 countries, being a pioneering attempt to apply the panel threshold regression model to analyze the relationship between financial inclusion and IEG by applying more rigorous and advanced econometric techniques.

The results indicate that total labor force available in a country, gross fixed capital formation and financial inclusion are positive and significant in lower regimes, but as it moves toward the higher regime, the labor force available in a country becomes less impactful. However, an increase has been observed in financial inclusion in the higher regime. The complete sample generally exhibits a positive yet significant relationship between financial inclusion and inclusive economic development.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of national investment in vocational education and training (VET) on the economic growth through the mediating role of social inclusion.

This study is based on a panel data of 31 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries for 15 years collected through secondary sources.

The statistical results of the study have supported the entire hypotheses. Particularly, the results demonstrate that the social inclusion strengthens the contribution of VET in the economic growth.

This study offers various policy implications for the policy makers of developing countries. Particularly, the policy makers of developing countries need to emphasize on social inclusion to enhance the contribution of national investment in VET while following the vocational education models of developed nations.

This study offers its theoretical contribution in the literature of VET by highlighting a mediating mechanism to explain how national investment in VET can contribute in economic growth through social inclusion.

The purpose of this paper is to measure the impact of financial inclusion on economic development.

Study 1 used World Bank Data to develop financial inclusion percentages of ownership of checking accounts, savings accounts, debit cards and loans for 179 countries among the poorest 40% of the population, from 2011–2017. Regressions established the financial inclusion, gross savings and GDP per capita growth linkage. Study 2 created and validated scales to measure social empowerment, economic empowerment and economic development, among inhabitants of Bangladesh villages. Structural equation modeling measured the mediation by social empowerment and economic empowerment of the financial inclusion and economic development linkage.

Total financial inclusion was significantly explained by gross savings, which was significantly explained by GDP per capita growth. Ownership of a checking account significantly increased gross savings, while ownership of a savings account significantly increased GDP per capita growth. Ownership of a checking account differentiated countries with the highest 5% of gross savings, while ownership of a debit card significantly differentiated countries with the GDP per capita growth. Social empowerment and economic empowerment significantly mediated the financial inclusion and economic development relationship.

The study is unique in examining financial inclusion from a multi country, macroeconomic perspective combined with measurement of its theoretical underpinnings through a primary data-based sample extracted from respondents in Bangladesh, a lower middle-income country in Southeast Asia.

This study examines the causal and dynamic link between financial inclusion and migrant remittances in sub-Saharan Africa.

The study employed a panel vector autoregressive (VAR) framework to examine the dynamic relationship between financial inclusion and migrant remittances in sub-Saharan Africa.

The findings indicate that there is a reverse causality between financial inclusion and migrant remittances in sub-Saharan Africa.

The practical implications of these findings are that central governments and economic policymakers in sub-Saharan African countries should formulate and implement policies aimed at fostering financial inclusion if they are to attract more migrant remittances to promote economic growth and financial sector development. This suggests that these two variables are complementary and not contradictory. The results also suggest that central banks and other financial institutions can leverage the positive effect of financial inclusion of financial sector development to enhance the development of the financial sector instead of pursuing financial sector development as a policy objective. This means policies aimed at promoting financial inclusion will not impede or sacrifice migrant remittances, economic growth and financial sector development.

This paper is the first to construct a financial inclusion index to examine the link between financial inclusion and migrant remittances from the sub-Saharan Africa perspective

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-10-2019-0612/

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the dynamic link between financial inclusion and financial sector development (FSD) in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This paper employs a panel vector autoregressive framework to examine the dynamic link between financial inclusion and FSD in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The findings indicate that there is a reverse causality between FSD and financial inclusion in both the Sub-Saharan Africa countries sample and the full sample. It is evident that financial inclusion is a driver of FSD and vice versa.

The practical implication of this study is that financial inclusion should not only be pursued as a policy objective but it could also be an outcome variable of FSD and vice versa. This implies that African economies and governments in their effort to enhance financial inclusion, FSD can serve as a policy tool. This means that policies aimed at promoting financial inclusion will not impede FSD because the two are complementary. This suggests that we can achieve financial inclusion without sacrificing FSD and vice versa.

This paper provides first empirical evidence of the link between financial inclusion and FSD from the Sub-Saharan Africa perspective using data sourced from World Development Indicators spanning from 1990 to 2014 for 48 Sub-Saharan African economies and 217 economies in the world for the full sample.