Digital financial services have been a key driver of financial inclusion in recent years. While there is evidence that financial inclusion through traditional services has a positive impact on economic growth, do the same results carry over for digital financial inclusion? What drives digital...

Interest rate caps, despite their intended objective of broadening financial inclusion, can have undesirable effects on financial inclusion under certain conditions. This paper examines the effect of microfinance-loan interest rate caps on financial inclusion in Cambodia. Based on a...

This study analyzes the drivers of the use of formal vs. informal financial services in emerging and developing countries using the 2017 Global FINDEX data. In particular, we investigate whether individuals' choice of financial services correlates with macro-financial and macro-structural...

In this paper we study how competition and financial soundness affect financial inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). We use detailed individual-level survey data, combined with key country-level indicators of bank competition and financial soundness, to study the effect on the adoption of...

We show empirical evidence that there may not be a tradeoff between market income inequality and high sustained growth, which is key for poverty alleviation. We argue that the economies that achieved high sustained growth and low market income inequality are characterized by dynamism-a drive...

We examine how the development of the digital infrastructure known as the 'India Stack'-including an interoperable payments system, a universal digital ID, and other features-is delivering on the government's objective to expand the provision of financial services. While each individual...

A universal testing and isolation policy is the most viable way to vanquish a pandemic. Its implementation requires: (i) an epidemiological rather than clinical approach to testing, sacrificing accuracy for scalability, convenience and speed; and (ii) state intervention to ramp up production,...

Industrial policy is tainted with bad reputation among policymakers and academics and is often viewed as the road to perdition for developing economies. Yet the success of the Asian Miracles with industrial policy stands as an uncomfortable story that many ignore or claim it cannot be...

This paper examines the objectives and instruments of trade policy in the European Community (EC) from 1987 until mid-1992. It reviews the Community’s institutional setting and policy environment as background to recent trends in EC trade policies and trading arrangements. A discussion of key...