Regional Variations of Banking Services and Poverty Reduction: Evidence from Subdistrict Level Administrative Data of Bangladesh
Iqbal, Kazi; Roy, Paritosh K.; Alam, Shamsul | September 2018
Abstract
While the role of commercial banks in financing economic growth and reducing poverty and income inequality is well documented in cross-country setup, the regional variations of the banking services within a country and its association with poverty reduction is understudied. Understanding of the local-level variations of banking services is essential for deeper understanding of financial inclusion and its impact on local-level poverty. To this end, we first shed light on the regional variations of a host of banking variables by creating a “banking atlas” using administrative data that captures the access to and use of banking services at the sub-district level in Bangladesh. The maps, uncovering interesting regional peculiarities, have the potential to be an important policy tool for targeting lagging regions and designing customized regional interventions in developing countries. Next, we link regional mapping of banking variables to the incidence of poverty using descriptive statistics and regression models. The regression results demonstrate that access to banking services is strongly associated with poverty reduction, even in the rural sample. However, in the case of use of banking services, the amount of deposit has a strong impact on poverty reduction but the amount of credit per adult is found to have no significant impact. These results corroborate the growing evidence that greater access to deposit services can promote saving and increase income. This study also highlights the importance of using administrative data to monitor local-level development.
Citation
Iqbal, Kazi; Roy, Paritosh K.; Alam, Shamsul. 2018. Regional Variations of Banking Services and Poverty Reduction: Evidence from Subdistrict Level Administrative Data of Bangladesh. © Asian Development Bank Institute. http://hdl.handle.net/11540/8866.Keywords
Alleviating Poverty
Anti-Poverty
Extreme Poverty
Fight Against Poverty
Global Poverty
Health Aspects Of Poverty
Indicators Of Poverty
Participatory Poverty Assessment
Poverty Eradication
Poverty Analysis
Poverty In Developing Countries
Poverty Reduction Efforts
Urban Poverty
Public Financial Management
Financial System
Financial Statistics
Foreign Direct Investment
Foreign and Domestic Financing
Development Indicators
Environmental Indicators
Economic Indicators
Educational Indicators
Demographic Indicators
Health Indicators
Disadvantaged Groups
Low Income Groups
Socially Disadvantaged Children
Rural Conditions
Rural Development
Social Conditions
Urban Development
Urban Sociology
Pension Funds
Mutual Funds
Social Equity
Financial Aspects
Fiscal Policy
Banks
Poor
Economic forecasting
Health expectancy
Social groups
Political participation
Distribution of income
Inequality of income
Developing countries
Rural community development
Mass society
Social change
Social policy
Social stability
Population
Sustainable development
Peasantry
Urban policy
Urban renewal
Pension plans
Individual retirement accounts
Employee pension trusts
Investment management
Investments
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