We examine the role of household financial access in determining the extent of risk sharing in Nigeria using household-level panel data. We estimate changes in the response of consumption to shocks for households with formal and informal access to finance and those without, both for the country...

Financial liberalization has been a controversial issue, as empirical evidence for growth enhancing effects is mixed. Here, we find sizable welfare gains from liberalization (cost to repression), though the gain in economic growth is ambiguous. We take the view that financial liberalization is a...

Why do many households remain exposed to large exogenous sources of non-systematic income risk? We use a series of randomized field experiments in rural India to test the importance of price and non-price factors in the adoption of an innovative rainfall insurance product. Demand is...

This paper introduces the concept of the financial possibility frontier as a constrained optimum level of financial development to gauge the relative performance of financial systems across the globe. This frontier takes into account structural country characteristics, institutional, and...

This study aims to identify policies that influence the development of financial institutions as measured across three dimensions: depth, efficiency, and stability. Applying the concept of the financial possibility frontier, developed by Beck & Feyen (2013) and formalized by Barajas et al...

Based on data collected on a wide range of financial sector indicators, new indices of financial development for countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are constructed, encompassing six themes: development of the monetary sector and monetary policy, banking sector development,...

Despite significant strides in financial development over the past decades, financial dollarization, as reflected in elevated shares of foreign currency deposits and credit in the banking system, remains common in developing economies. We study the impact of financial dollarization,...

The paper analyses existing country-level information on the relationship between the development of Islamic banking and financial inclusion. In Muslim countries - members of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) - various indicators of financial inclusion tend to be lower, and the...

Financial inclusion has been one of the key pillars of Colombia's development strategy for anumber of years. Financial inclusion policies have aimed at channeling microcredit to poor,spreading formal banking system usage, fostering electronic payment acceptance, andmaking financial services more...

Many Caribbean financial systems are relatively well developed for their size but benefits are concentrated in a small part of the population. In several large countries, the financial development levels are below what is warranted by that country's own macroeconomic fundamentals. SMEs, in...