The relationship between financial inclusion, economic growth and poverty: A study of Jordan
This thesis empirically investigates the relationship between financial inclusion, economic growth and poverty in Jordan during the period 1980-2020. The study argues that providing financial services to individuals is an effective way to enhance economic growth and reduce poverty. It investigates the access to and usage of financial services in Jordan. This study applies the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model to examine the annual time-series data collected from the CBJ, World Bank, and IMF. The Augmented Dickey Fuller test is used to test the stationarity of variables used in the ARDL model. The study shows that financial inclusion has a significant positive effect on economic growth. Moreover, the study also indicates that financial inclusion has a significant positive effect on income per capita, which reduces poverty. Finally, the outcome shows that economic growth enhances financial inclusion. Consequently, the study confirms finance and growth theory, which asserts that financial services are a positive function of economic growth and reduce poverty. Consequently, this study recommends that extending and enhancing financial inclusion in Jordan needs to be afforded greater effort due to its positive effect on the Jordanian economy generally and on economic growth specifically.
Financial inclusion, Financial Services, Jordan, Economic growth, Microfinance, Inflation, Poverty
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