Addressing the severity and intensity of poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa: how relevant is the ICT and financial development pathway?

Abstract

The study examines the effectiveness of ICT diffusion and financial development in reducing the severity and intensity of poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Using data from the World Development Indicators and the Global Consumption and Income Project (1980-2019), we provide evidence, robust to several specifications from the dynamic system GMM and the panel corrected standard errors estimation techniques, to show that, compared to financial access, ICT usage, and ICT access, ICT skills is remarkable in reducing both the severity and intensity of poverty. The results further revealed that, though ICT skills reduce poverty, the effect is more pronounced in the presence of enhanced financial development. Policy recommendations are provided in line with the region's green growth agenda and technological progress.

Economic Globalisation and Inclusive Green Growth in Africa: Contingencies and Policy-Relevant Thresholds of Governance

“…First, we pay attention to the new economy, measured as the proportion of the population with internet access on grounds of empirical evidence that it drives both SES and EVS. For instance, some studies find that ICT diffusion promotes inclusive growth through access to information, economic growth and reduction in income inequality (Adeleye et al, 2021;Tchamyou et al, 2019;Ofori et al, 2021). Concerning EVS, while some researchers find that internet access reduces precarity and carbon footprint (see e.g., Zhao et al, 2021;Global e-Sustainability Initiative, 2020;Danish, 2019), contrary effects have also been reported (see e.g., Alatas, 2021;Higón et al, 2017;Salahuddin et al, 2016).…”

Repackaging FDI for Inclusive Growth: Nullifying Effects and Policy Relevant Thresholds of Governance

“…6 See pages 5 -9 of "Anand et al 2013" :https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2013/wp13135.pdf a significant fraction of their incomes is spent on consumables (Ofori et al 2021a;Ofori et al 2018). We pay attention to financial development since it has the power to promote shared growth by cushioning households and firms to exit poverty by providing financial products, services and opportunities to existing as well as new bank customers (De Haan et al, 2021).…”

“…Though in this case, the dynamic ordinary least squares, for instance, can be applied to test our hypotheses as Stock and Watson (1993) argue, we opt for the dynamic system GMM of Arellano and Bond (1995) on grounds of some endogeneity concerns, which if unresolved can bias our estimates. The endogeneity concern arises since (i) past values of income inequality could have a strong relationship with present income inequality values (Ofori et al, 2021a;Ofori, 2021), and (ii) there is an established simultaneity between shared growth and financial development as spelt out in the finance-led hypothesis (Schumpeter, 1911;Levine, 2005) and growth-led hypotheses (Robinson, 1952). Regarding the former, the endogeneity problem arises because >?…”

Economic globalisation and inclusive green growth in Africa: Contingencies and policy‐relevant thresholds of governance

“…First, we pay attention to the new economy, measured as the proportion of the population with internet access on grounds of empirical evidence that it drives both SES and EVS. For instance, some studies find that ICT diffusion promotes inclusive growth through access to information, economic growth and reduction in income inequality (Adeleye et al, 2021;Ofori et al, 2021;Tchamyou et al, 2019). Concerning EVS, whilst some researchers find that internet access reduces precarity and carbon footprint (see e.g., Zhao et al, 2021;Global e-Sustainability Initiative, 2020;Danish., 2019), contrary effects have also been reported (see e.g., Alatas ¸, 2021;Hig on et al, 2017;Salahuddin et al, 2016).…”