What are the welfare effects of enhanced disclosures of public information ? Is it always the case, that frequent and timely publication of economic statistics by government agencies and the central bank are desirable ? This question has become one of several interlinked strands of debate on the...

Financial inclusion-defined here as the use of formal accounts-can bring many welfare benefits to individuals. Yet we know very little about the factors underpinning financial inclusion across individuals and countries. Using data for 123 countries and over 124,000 individuals, this paper tries...

With extensive country and firm-level data sets, this paper first documents that the financial sectors of most Sub-Saharan African countries remain significantly underdeveloped by the standards of other developing countries. The paper also finds that population density appears to be considerably...