Financial development, institutions, and poverty alleviation: an empirical analysis

The aim of this article is to analyse empirically whether the level of institutional quality influences how financial development affects poverty for a sample of developing countries covering the period from 1984 to 2012. Using an interaction term constructed as a product between financial development and institutional quality we find that the pro-poor impact of financial development decreases as the quality of institutions rises. Such a differential effect can be ascribed to the capacity of banks to provide functions that mimic those performed by an institutional framework that works well. The results of this article can be used for policy management.