This paper introduces a new index of financial inclusion for 151 economies using principal component analysis to compute weights for aggregating nine indicators of access, availability, and usage. It then assesses the impact of financial inclusion on poverty and income inequality. The results...

Over the past 2 decades, income inequality has moderated in three middle-income countries in Southeast Asia-the Philippines, Thailand, and Viet Nam-with multiple factors at play. In each country, wage, nonfarm business income, and overseas remittance concentrations declined as less well-off...

The global financial crisis of 2008-2009 illustrates how financial turmoil in advanced economies could trigger severe financial stress in emerging markets. Previous studies dealing with financial crises and contagion show the linkages through which financial stress are transmitted from advanced...

With increasing financial integration and improving regulatory quality, we expect equity home bias to decline. Drawing on the supportive evidence for such trends in advanced economies, this paper investigates the links between financial integration and regulatory quality; and equity home bias in...

Understanding the determinants of capital inflows is essential to designing an effective policy framework to manage volatile capital flows and their disruptive potential. This paper aims to identify factors that explain the size and volatility of various types of capital flows to developing...

The global financial crisis of 2008–2009 illustrates how financial turmoil in advanced economies could trigger severe financial stress in emerging markets. Previous studies dealing with financial crises and contagion show the linkages through which financial stress are transmitted from...