We investigate the impact of 20th--century European colonization on growth in Africa. We find that in the 1960--88 period growth has been faster for dependencies than for colonies; for British and French colonies than for Portuguese, Belgian and Italian ones; and for countries with less economic...

We investigate the impact of 20th-century European colonization on growth. We find that colonial heritage, as measured by the identity of the metropolitan ruler and by the degree of economic penetration, matters for the heterogeneity of growth performances in Africa. Colonial indicators are...

The study assesses the role of mobile phones and mobile banking in decreasing inequality in 52 African countries. The empirical procedure involves first, examining the income-redistributive effect of mobile phone penetration and then investigating the contribution of mobile banking services in...

The employment of financial development indicators without due consideration to country/regional specific financial development realities remains an issue of substantial policy relevance. Financial depth in the perspective of money supply is not equal to liquid liabilities in every development...

The contribution of this paper to complement theoretical and qualitative mobile penetration literature with empirical evidence is twofold: firstly, we assess the income-redistributive effect of mobile phone penetration and; secondly, the instrumentality of financial development dynamics in this...

The object of this paper is to complement theoretical 'mobile penetration' literature with empirical evidence in a dual manner: on the one hand, assess the income-redistributive effect of mobile phone penetration and; on the other hand, the instrumentality of good governance in this nexus. Main...

Purpose - The aim of this paper is to complement theoretical and qualitative literature with empirical evidence on the income-redistributive effect of mobile phone penetration in 52 African countries. Design/methodology/approach - Robust Ordinary Least Squares and Two Stage Least Squares...

In the first empirical study on how financial reforms have been instrumental in mitigating inequality through financial sector competition, we contribute at the same time to the macroeconomic literature on measuring financial development and respond to the growing field of economic development...

Purpose: We make available new critical macroeconomic financial indicators to the research community. Nothing is more powerful than a phenomenon whose time has come. What is the macroeconomic empirical context of growing mobile banking? Perhaps one of the deepest empirical hollows in the...

In the first empirical assessment of the incidence of mobile banking on financial intermediary development in Africa, we use two definitions of the financial system: the traditional IFS (2008) and Asongu (2011) measures of financial sector importance. When the conception of a financial system is...