TY  - JOUR
AU  - Beck,Thorsten
AU  - Demirguc-Kunt,Asli
AU  - Levine,Ross
TI  - Finance, Inequality, and Poverty: Cross-Country Evidence
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 10979
PY  - 2004
Y2  - December 2004
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10979
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10979.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Thorsten Beck
The World Bank
1818 H Street N.W.
Mail Stop MC 3-307
Washington, D.C. 20433
E-Mail: tbeck@worldbank.org

Asli Demirguc-Kunt
World Bank
1818 H Street
Washington, DC  20433
E-Mail: ademirguckunt@worldbank.org

Ross Levine
Department of Economics
Brown University
64 Waterman Street
Providence, RI 02912
Tel: 401/863-2170
E-Mail: ross_levine@brown.edu
M1  - published as Beck, Thorsten, Asli Demirguc-Kunt and Ross Levine. "SMEs, Growth, And Poverty: Cross-Country Evidence," Journal of Economic Growth, 2005, v10(3,Sep), 199-229
AB  - While substantial research finds that financial development boosts overall economic growth, we study whether financial development disproportionately raises the incomes of the poor and alleviates poverty. Using a broad cross-country sample, we distinguish among competing theoretical predictions about the impact of financial development on changes in income distribution and poverty alleviation. We find that financial development reduces income inequality by disproportionately boosting the incomes of the poor. Countries with better-developed financial intermediaries experience faster declines in measures of both poverty and income inequality. These results are robust to controlling for other country characteristics and potential reverse causality.
ER  -