Does financial liberalization reduce income inequality? Evidence from Africa.

This paper investigates the impact of financial liberalization on income inequality by using the country-level panel data from 51 African countries in more than two decades. We find that income inequality increases, rather than decreases, with the level of financial liberalization. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that financial liberalization likely induces banks to allocate the scarce financial resources in African countries more discriminatively to rich clienteles but excludes the poor ones from financial access, which thus widens the income gap. • We examine the impact of financial liberalization on income inequality. • We use the panel data from 51 African countries in more than two decades. • Income inequality increases with the level of financial liberalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]