Logo
Munich Personal RePEc Archive

ICT, Financial Access and Gender Inclusion in the Formal Economic Sector: Evidence from Africa

Asongu, Simplice and Odhiambo, Nicholas (2018): ICT, Financial Access and Gender Inclusion in the Formal Economic Sector: Evidence from Africa. Published in: African Finance Journal , Vol. 20, No. 2 (December 2018): pp. 46-66.

[thumbnail of MPRA_paper_92497.pdf] PDF
MPRA_paper_92497.pdf

Download (258kB)

Abstract

The study investigates the relevance of information and communication technology (ICT) in modulating the effect of financial access on female economic participation. Female economic participation is proxied by female labor force participation, financial access is measured with deposit and credit channels while ICT is proxied by mobile phone penetration, internet penetration and fixed broadband subscriptions. The focus of the study is on 48 African countries for the period 2004-2014 and the empirical evidence is based on Generalized Method of Moments. Policy thresholds are established at which, ICT modulates financial access to induce favourable effects on female economic participation. These policy thresholds are: (i) 160 mobile phone penetration (per 100 people) for the deposit channel and (ii) 2.166 and 0.75 fixed broadband subscriptions per 100 people for respectively, the deposit mechanism and credit channel. Overall the study supports the importance of ICT in moderating financial access for enhanced female economic participation.

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact us: mpra@ub.uni-muenchen.de

This repository has been built using EPrints software.

MPRA is a RePEc service hosted by Logo of the University Library LMU Munich.