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This paper aims to understand household’s latent behaviour decision-making in accessing financial services. In this analysis, the determinants of the choice of the pre-entry Mzansi account by consumers in South Africa is looked at.

In this study, 102 variables, grouped in the following categories: basic literacy, understanding financial terms, targets for financial advice, desired financial education and financial perception. Using a computationally efficient variable selection algorithm, variables that can satisfactorily explain the choice of a Mzansi account were studied.

The Mzansi intervention is appealing to individuals with basic but insufficient financial education. Aspirations seem to be very influential in revealing the choice of financial services, and, to this end, Mzansi is perceived as a pre-entry account not meeting the aspirations of individuals aiming to climb up the financial services ladder. It was found that Mzansi holders view the account mainly as a vehicle for receiving payments, but, on the other hand, are debt-averse and inclined to save. Hence, although there is at present no concrete evidence that the Mzansi intervention increases access to finance via diversification (i.e. by recruiting customers into higher-level accounts and services), this analysis shows that this is very likely to be the case.

The issue of demand-side constraints on access to finance have been largely been ignored in the theoretical and empirical literature. This paper undertakes some preliminary steps in addressing this gap.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an additional insight into the dividend puzzle by investigating the field practice of dividend policy in an emerging market such as Nigeria. It also aims to contribute to the literature on industry-related dividend effect by examining whether managerial views on dividend policy vary between financial and non-financial firms.

The study employs semi-structured interviews with the financial managers of 21 Nigerian listed firms. The interviewees were divided into two broad groups of financial vs non-financial firms based on the industry classification of the firms.

The findings suggest that, despite differences in institutional environment, the dividend-setting process in Nigerian companies is similar in many extents to those in the USA and other developed markets. Nigerian companies exhibit dividend conservatism and typically focus on current earnings, stability of earnings and availability of cash when determining their current dividend levels. However, unlike in prior studies, the interviewees suggest that their companies do not have a target payout ratio; instead, they target the dividend per share when determining the disbursement level. Nevertheless, views regarding these issues vary significantly between financial and non-financial firms.

This paper adds to the extant literature that has examined the behavioural aspects of dividend policy using interviews, especially in the context of less-developed markets such as Nigeria. The study also updates and extends prior evidence on an industry-related effect on managerial perceptions of dividend policy.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the rural credit demand by providing a theoretical and econometric framework which controls the problem of selection bias.

The study is conducted in Assam, India, and uses a quasi-experiment design to gather primary data. Heckman two-stage procedure and type 3 Tobit model are used to evaluate the rural credit demand.

It is observed that, in general, rural households’ credit demand is influenced by the ability and capacity to work, the value of physical assets of the borrowers as well as some other lenders’ and borrowers’ specific factors. But, the direction of causality of the factors influencing borrowers’ credit demand is remarkably different across credit sources.

The study recommends that it is possible to provide an efficient credit demand estimate through a correct theoretical and econometric framework. The possible limitation of the study can be due to the exclusion of the role of “traditional community based organizations” in rural Assam while evaluating the credit demand, and therefore, this limitation is left to future research.

The study contributes to the literature by assessing the probable differences among formal, semiformal and informal credit sources with respect to rural credit demand.