Finance, inequality, and poverty: cross-country evidence

"While substantial research finds that financial development boosts overall economic growth, we study whether financial development disproportionately raises the incomes of the poor and alleviates poverty. Using a broad cross-country sample, we distinguish among competing theoretical prediction...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

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Bibliographische Detailangaben
Hauptverfasser: Beck, Thorsten 1967- (VerfasserIn), Demirgüç-Kunt, Asli 1961- (VerfasserIn), Levine, Ross 1960- (VerfasserIn)
Format: Buch
Sprache:English
Veröffentlicht: Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2004
Schriftenreihe:National Bureau of Economic Research <Cambridge, Mass.>: NBER working paper series 10979
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Zusammenfassung:"While substantial research finds that financial development boosts overall economic growth, we study whether financial development disproportionately raises the incomes of the poor and alleviates poverty. Using a broad cross-country sample, we distinguish among competing theoretical predictions about the impact of financial development on changes in income distribution and poverty alleviation. We find that financial development reduces income inequality by disproportionately boosting the incomes of the poor. Countries with better-developed financial intermediaries experience faster declines in measures of both poverty and income inequality. These results are robust to controlling for other country characteristics and potential reverse causality"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Beschreibung:45 S. graph. Darst.