Time: 13:00-15:00 (UK Time), Wednesday, 26 October 2022
Presenter: Dr. Ayse Demir, Roehampton University
Chair: Prof. Victor Murinde, SOAS University of London

Abstract

This paper uses the Nigerian General Household Survey data merged with georeferenced data on financial services points obtained from Insight2Impact (i2i) GIS interface. We construct a multidimensional index for financial inclusion and examine the effect of financial inclusion on household food security in Nigeria. The results of this study show that financial inclusion has a strong positive effect on the various measures of household food security used in our analysis. The results are robust to the use of instrumental variable method estimation, in which we use households’ distance to the nearest financial institution as an instrument for financial inclusion. We identify remittances, income, assets accumulation and risk-coping strategies as the potential channels through which financial inclusion affect household food security. The findings of this study lend credence to the growing consensus of the benefits of financial inclusion on household outcomes.

Presenter

Dr. Ayse Demir

Dr. Ayse Demir is a Senior Lecturer in Economics & Finance. Prior to joining Roehampton University, she was Lecturer in Economics at Coventry University during 2020-2021. She was a post-doc research fellow under the Inclusive Finance Project at SOAS University of London during 2017-2020. She received her PhD and MSc in Economics from University of Leicester. Her research interests are financial economics, development economics and institutional economics.