Dr Mary Amponsah

Rising poverty levels in Sub-Saharan Africa requires a better understanding of inclusive growth determinants to develop effective policy responses. Using panel data from 44 Sub-Saharan African countries for the period 1990¿2018, we compute measures of inclusive growth based on gender and the rural¿urban divide. We account for endogeneity, cross-sectional dependence, and heteroscedasticity, and estimate an inclusive growth model using the instrumental variable generalized method of moments (IV-GMM) estimator. The empirical evidence indicates that the impact of informality on inclusive growth depends on the measure of informality and inclusiveness. Our results show that financial inclusion exhibits an inverted-U-shaped relationship with inclusive growth. Also, we find that the moderating role of financial inclusion in the informality¿inclusive growth nexus is mixed. Our results are robust to alternative model specifications and highlight the importance of financial inclusion and informality in influencing inclusive growth in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Domestic savings remain low in Ghana despite several attempts to improve this situation. Whereas existing studies on private savings have identified several determinants, the role of financial literacy in saving decisions has not been explored. In this paper, we build on existing studies and provide evidence supporting our hypothesis that financial literacy is key to promoting domestic saving. The study relies mainly on primary data, and the binary probit regression model is employed as the estimation technique. Our results show that improving financial literacy among Ghanaians should be incorporated into the broad policy package aimed at increasing domestic saving which is a prerequisite for investment and subsequently sustainable economic growth. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.