This paper analyses how financially included adults might become unbanked again. Agents of financial inclusion incorporate economic and social constraints in the delivery of formal financial services. These constraints limit the ability of poor banked adults to use basic financial services to...

Existing literature sees opportunistic behaviour of contractual partners as the main reason why rational agents underinvest in relationship-specific assets. We look beyond this well-know holdup problem and argue that financial vulnerability and short-term planning horizon can also lead to such...

An influential strand of literature starting with the Nobel Prize winning work of Oliver Williamson (1971, 1975) argues that a rational agent underinvests in relationship-specific assets due to the possibility of an opportunistic behaviour on the part of her contractual partner. We first combine...

This study discusses the current state of knowledge on the financial development and economic growth by reviewing the most decisive theoretical and empirical contributions. It is obvious that financial development is at least correlated with economic development and that a sound and refined...

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...

African nations have in time, passed over-relied on remittances inflow to augment domestic finances needed for growth. Despite the volume and magnitude of remittances that have to serve as an alternative source of investment financing, African remains mostly underdeveloped. The altruistic...

Banks (but not stock markets) promote economic growth by facilitating relationship-specific investment between buyers and suppliers of intermediate goods. Combined insights from literature on signaling role of banks and on relationship-specific investment motivate this economic channel: A...