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Financial inclusion in Peru has been addressed through coverage, quality of financial services, movement of transactions, and service points. The purpose of this chapter is to evaluate for the department of Ancash, Peru, the link between financial inclusion and its socioeconomic factors. Socioeconomic variables and financial inclusion of the Ancash department of the National Household Survey are taken as indicators, later contrasted through the logit model, with the financial inclusion variable being the explained variable.

There is evidence of positive and negative relationships between financial inclusion and socioeconomic variables; these are important components for planning financial inclusion. Raising the levels of formal employment, the educational level and considering the area of residence would be a strategy to generate a dynamic of inclusion in the department of Ancash.

The existing literature offers various perspectives on integrating cryptocurrencies into investment portfolios; yet, there is a gap in understanding the behaviours, attitudes and cross-investment links of individual investors. This study, grounded in the modern portfolio theory and the random walk theory, aims to add empirical insights that are specific to the UK context. It explores four hypotheses related to the influence of socio-demographics, digital adoption, cross-investment behaviours and financial attitudes on cryptocurrency owners.

This study uses a logistic regression model with secondary data from the Financial Lives Survey 2020 to assess the factors impacting cryptocurrency ownership. A total of 29 variables are used, categorized into four groups aligned with the hypotheses. Additionally, hierarchical clustering analysis was conducted to further explore the cross-investment links.

The study reveals a significant lack of diversification among UK cryptocurrency investors, a pronounced inclination towards high-risk investments such as peer-to-peer lending and crowdfunding, and parallels with gambling behaviours, including financial dissatisfaction and a propensity for risk-taking. It highlights the influence of demographic traits, risk tolerance, technological literacy and emotional attitudes on cryptocurrency investment decisions.

This study provides valuable insights into cryptocurrency regulation and retail investor protection, underscoring the necessity for tailored financial education and a holistic regulatory approach for investment products with comparable risk levels, with the aim of minimizing regulatory arbitrage. It significantly enhances our understanding of the unique dynamics of cryptocurrency investments within the evolving financial landscape.

Even if digital financial services have a positive impact on financial inclusion, it creates a digital as well as gender divide within and across countries, creating regional disparity even within developing nations. Though pandemic has initiated digitalization of various services, there has been scanty research on whether digital transfer of income can improve digital financial inclusion in post-pandemic era, especially in developing countries. The purpose of the current study is to explain the regional disparity within developing countries from three regions East Asia Pacific, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, using latest World Findex data, 2021.

The author takes an instrumental variable approach to run bivariate probit model to find the factors that motivate the users to make digital payments.

The study observes that electronic transfer of wages, government transfers and remittances can motivate individuals to make use of digital mode of transactions and mobile. The practice of formal saving and borrowings are the prerequisites. However, this mechanism holds good for East Asia Pacific and not for South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, which are poor in information and communication technology infrastructure. Women are lagging behind men, but digital transfer of wages motivate them to make digital transaction.

Digitalization of all government services and provision of affordable mobile network and internet services are necessary for regions like South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. In East Asia Pacific region, data protection, data governance and better regulatory framework are required. Higher female labor force participation with digital transfer of wages and empowerment with smartphones are key to reducing the Gender gap.

The current study corrects for the possible endogeneity issue, which the extant literature has not paid attention to, and provides region-specific and gender-specific policy recommendations for an improved digital inclusion.

All entrepreneurs interact simultaneously with multiple entrepreneurial contexts throughout their entrepreneurial journey. This conceptual paper has two central aims: (1) it synthesises the current literature on gender and entrepreneurship, and (2) it increases our understanding of how gender norms, contextual embeddedness and (in)equality mechanisms interact within contexts. Illustrative contexts that are discussed include entrepreneurship education, business networks and finance.

This conceptual paper draws upon extant literature to develop its proposed conceptual framework. It provides suggestions for systemic policy interventions as well as pointing to promising paths for future research.

A literature-generated conceptual framework is developed to explain and address the systemic barriers faced by opportunity-driven women as they engage in entrepreneurial contexts. This conceptual framework visualises the interplay between gender norms, contextual embeddedness and inequality mechanisms to explain systemic disparities. An extra dimension is integrated in the framework to account for the power of agency within women and with others, whereby agency, either individually or collectively, may disrupt and subvert the current interplay with inequality mechanisms.

This work advances understanding of the underrepresentation of women entrepreneurs. The paper offers a conceptual framework that provides policymakers with a useful tool to understand how to intervene and increase contextual embeddedness for all entrepreneurs. Additionally, this paper suggests moving beyond “fixing” women entrepreneurs and points towards disrupting systemic disparities to accomplish this contextual embeddedness for all entrepreneurs. By doing so, this research adds to academic knowledge on the construction and reconstruction of gender in the field of entrepreneurship.

Currently, consumers of financial products and services have become more vulnerable to predatory financial institutions, especially in the aftermath of Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, financial consumers like the persons with disabilities (PWDs) should be equipped with knowledge and skills to help them to evaluate complex financial products on offer in financial markets, especially in developing countries to avoid being victims of fraudulent lending. The purpose of this study is to establish whether customized financial literacy mediates the relationship between financial consumer protection and financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs in rural Uganda post Covid-19 pandemic.

SmartPLS 4.0 was used to construct the measurement and structural equation models to test whether customized financial literacy significantly mediates the relationship between financial consumer protection and financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs in rural Uganda post Covid-19 pandemic.

The results revealed a partial mediating effect of customized financial literacy in the relationship between financial consumer protection and financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs in rural Uganda post Covid-19 pandemic. Conducting customized financial literacy increases financial consumer protection by 12 percentage points to promote financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs in rural Uganda post Covid-19 pandemic.

This study focused only on customized financial literacy and financial consumer protection to promote universal financial inclusion of PWDs’ owned MSMEs post Covid-19 pandemic. Future studies may use data collected from other vulnerable groups amongst the unbanked population in developing countries, Uganda inclusive. In addition, this study also collected only quantitative data from the selected population. Further studies can be conducted using key informant interviews and focused group discussion to get the perceptions of the PWDs on being protected from exploitation by unscrupulous financial institutions.

The findings from this study can help policymakers in developing countries like Uganda to revise the existing consumer protection law to include strong clauses on protection of people with special needs like the PWDs. The law must ensure that they are not exploited by financial institutions because of their conditions. The law ought to make sure that the PWDs are educated about their rights in the financial market place and all information on financial products offered by financial institutions should be simplified and interpreted to them before they make consumption decisions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present study is amongst the first few studies to provide a meticulous and unique discourse on the ever increasing role of financial literacy combined with consumer protection to reduce consumption risks within the financial markets, especially in developing countries in the aftermath of global pandemic shocks. This study uses the social learning theory, theory of reasoned action and theory of planned behaviour to elucidate how customized financial literacy can enhance consumer protection to increase financial inclusion of groups with special needs like the PWDs who have become more susceptible to exploitation by unscrupulous financial institutions in under-developed financial markets, especially in post Covid-19 pandemic.

This study aims to systematically review various behavioral biases that impact an investor’s decision-making process. The prime objective of this paper is to thematically explore the behavioral bias literature and propose a comprehensive framework that can elucidate a more reasonable explanation of changes in financial markets and investors’ behavior.

Systematic literature review (SLR) methodology is applied to a portfolio of 71 peer-reviewed articles collected from different electronic databases between 2007 and 2021. Content analysis of the extant literature is performed to identify the research themes and existing gaps in the literature.

This research identifies publication trends of the behavioral biases literature and uncovers 24 different biases that impact individual investors’ decision-making. Through thematic analysis, an attribute–consequence–impact framework is proposed that explains different biases leading to individual investors’ irrationality. The study further proposes directions for future research by applying the theory–characteristics–context–methodology framework.

The results of this research will help scholars and practitioners in understanding the existence of various behavioral biases and assist them in identifying potential strategies which can evade the negative effects of these biases. The findings will further help the financial service providers to understand these biases and improve the landscape of financial services.

The essence of the current paper is the application of the SLR method on 24 biases in the area of behavioral finance. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first attempt of its kind which provides a methodical and comprehensive compilation of both cognitive and emotional behavioral biases that affect the individual investor’s decision-making.

The purpose of this paper is to explore two financial inclusion measures adopted within the local welfare context of the city of Milan, Italy, examining their functioning and underpinning representations. The aim is also to understand how such representations take concrete shape in the practices of local actors, and their implications for the opportunities and constraints regarding individuals' effective inclusion. To this end, this paper takes a wide-ranging look at the interplay between the rise of financial inclusion and the individualisation and responsibilisation models informing welfare policies, within the broader context of financialisation processes overall.

This paper draws on the sociology of public action approach and provides a qualitative analysis of two case studies, a social microcredit service and a financial education programme, based on direct observation and semi-structured interviews conducted with key policy actors.

This paper sheds light on the rationale behind two financial inclusion services and illustrates how the instruments involved incorporate and tend to reproduce, individualising logics that reduce the problem of financial exclusion, and the social and economic vulnerability which underlies it, to a matter of personal responsibility, thus fuelling depoliticising tendencies in public action. It also discusses the contradictions underlying financial inclusion instruments, showing how local actors negotiate views and strategies on the problems to be addressed.

The paper makes an original contribution to the field of sociology and social policy by focusing on two under-researched instruments of financial inclusion and improving understanding of the finance-welfare state nexus and of the contradictions underpinning attempts at financial inclusion of the most vulnerable.

This study examines the non-linear impact of financial development on income inequality and analyses the mediators through which financial development affects income inequality.

The study uses a dynamic panel threshold method with an endogeneous threshold variable on a comprehensive sample of 85 countries over the period of 1996-2015.

The author finds that financial development activities increase income inequality in developed countries. However, financial development promotes income equality in developing countries. Further, the study finds that education and institutional quality are the channels through which financial development has non-linear impacts on income inequality.

The study explores relatively new method to examine the nonlinear impact of financial development and also considers new dataset for the main explanatory variable.

This study examines the effects of financial literacy and financial risk tolerance on investor behavior by introducing social stigma as a mediator and emotional intelligence as a moderating factor.

Data is collected from 761 financially independent individual investors, with a minimum age of 25 years, a minimum of five years of stock market experience and residing in five selected major Indian cities. The collected data is subsequently analyzed using SmartPLS. Homogeneous purposive sampling followed by snowball sampling was employed.

The findings of the study demonstrate a strong and noteworthy impact of financial literacy on investor behavior. The research reveals that social stigma acts as a partial mediator and emotional intelligence plays a significant moderator with direct effects and indirect effects between financial literacy, financial risk tolerance, social stigma and investor behavior.

Exploring emotional intelligence in financial decisions enriches academic programs by integrating it into financial education. Collaboration between academia and financial institutions yields practical tools, infusing emotional intelligence into services. This prompts systemic shifts, reshaping education and societal discourse, fostering inclusive, emotionally intelligent financial landscapes, aiming to redefine both academic teachings and real-world financial practices.

Integrating emotional intelligence into government-led financial literacy programs can transform societal perspectives on financial decision-making. Customized services, destigmatizing workshops and collaborative efforts with academia foster an emotionally intelligent financial landscape, reshaping traditional paradigms.

Promoting open societal discussions about finances combats stigma, fostering a supportive space for risk-taking. Emphasizing emotional intelligence in awareness campaigns cultivates inclusivity and confidence. Normalizing financial talks empowers individuals, enhancing their well-being. Elevating both financial literacy and emotional intelligence enhances overall financial health, nurturing a community adept at navigating financial journeys.

This study marks a notable contribution to behavioral finance and social stigma theory by examining their intersection with emotional intelligence. It uniquely introduces social stigma as a mediator and emotional intelligence as a moderator, unexplored in this context. This novelty underscores the research’s significance, offering practical insights into financial well-being.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-08-2023-0626

The purpose of this study is to explore and understand, how strong financial literacy influences the cognitive biases of students in Germany while investing. Second, it also evaluates the most influential cognitive biases that students encounter when undertaking their investment decisions within this environment.

A quantitative approach is used to assess the relationship between financial literacy and students’ investment-related cognitive biases by using the frameworks proposed by Clercq (2019) and Pompian (2012).

The results advocate that the students’ financial literacy positively impacts their cognitive biases within the investment process. It additionally revealed the most significant biases regarding students’ investment decision-making and proposed the possible reasons behind their behavioral distortions.

The study provides a detailed review of the behavioral tendencies of the younger generation while investing and creates recommendations for prospective researchers.

This research lies at the junction of the behavioral finance field, suggesting that it assists in developing a theoretical framework of cognitive biases within students’ financial decisions. Furthermore, it serves as an addition to the financial management subject course that would provide valuable insights about, first and foremost, financial literacy and subsequently, the theory behind the investment process.