Mobile money penetration, financial inclusion, household welfare and poverty reduction in Ghana

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Date
2023
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KNUST
Abstract
Despite research progress on the effect of financial inclusion and mobile money penetration on other socioeconomic variables, the impact of mobile money and financial inclusion on poverty reductions and household welfare is still underdeveloped in the literature. Accordingly, this study investigates the impact of mobile money and financial inclusion on two poverty indicators, i.e., life expectancy and poverty headcount, and household welfare (household final consumption expenditure) defined by the world bank from word development indicators (wdi) from 2010 to 2022. The study applies the ols and the 2sls methods. The empirical results reveal that mobile finance increases financial inclusion. Furthermore, mobile money and financial inclusion reduce poverty but increase household welfare. Based on these results, the study recommends that banks and regulators eliminate barriers to mobile money expansion by reducing transaction costs such as service charges and taxes and ensuring safety by combating cyber risk associated with the use of mobile money.
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