Remittances, financial development and poverty reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa: Implications for post-COVID-19 macroeconomic policies

Alex O. Acheampong*, Isaac Appiah-Otoo, Janet Dzator, Kwabena Koforobour Agyemang

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

48 Citations (Scopus)
182 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

To design and implement effective post-COVID-19 macroeconomics policies to tackle poverty in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), policymakers need to understand the factors shaping poverty in the region. This paper investigates the effect of international remittances and financial development on poverty alleviation in 44 sub-Saharan African SSA countries from 2010 to 2019. The instrumental variable generalised method of moment technique results indicated that while remittances increase poverty, financial development contributes significantly to poverty reduction. The results consistently revealed that remittances increase both male and female poverty rates, while financial development significantly reduces male and female poverty rates. Other factors such as economic growth, foreign direct investment, and trade openness contributed significantly to reducing poverty. In contrast, government expenditure and foreign aid were found to increase poverty rate in SSA. These results are robust to the Lewbel two-stage least squares estimator. The practical implications of these findings for post-COVID-19 macroeconomic policies in SSA are discussed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1365-1387
Number of pages23
JournalJournal of Policy Modeling
Volume43
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2021
Externally publishedYes

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